11




JAUB,


THlE




W93
0W


v;   - s




k








I
A




EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
POETRY AND
THE DRAMA
THE LONGER POEMS OF
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH




I   I11.  I  -   -


THE PUBLISHERS OF &/'E-tt X$
'LIBR.49r- WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND
FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST
OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED
VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER
THE FOLLOWING TWELVE HEADINGS:
TRAVEL -4 SCIENCE - FICTION
THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY  4   CLASSICAL
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
ESSAYS: ORATORY
POETRY & DRAMA
BIOGRAPHY
ROMANCE
IN TWO STYLES OF BINDING, CLOTH,
FLAT BACK, COLOURED TOP, AND
LEATHER, ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP.


--...


LOND)ON  J. M. DENT & CO.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.


---... _








to/
ME




I        An Evening Walk                        3
When schoolboys stretch'd their length upon the green
And round the humming elm, a glimmering scene!
In the brown park, in flocks, the troubl'd deer
Shook the still twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the wall-girt intake  stood,
Unshaded, eying far below, the flood,
Crouded behind the swain, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press;
And long, with wistful gaze, his walk survey'd
Till dipp'd his pathway in the river shade;
-Then Quiet led me up the huddling rill,
Bright'ning with water-breaks the sombrous gill;"
To where, while thick above the branches close,
In dark-brown bason its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of darkest green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between;
Save that, atop, the subtle sunbeams shine,
On wither'd briars that o'er the craggs recline;
Sole light admitted here, a small cascade,
Illumes with sparkling foam the twilight shade.
Beyond, along the visto of the brook,
Where antique roots its bustling path o'erlook,
The eye reposes on a secret bridge 3
Half grey, half shagg'd with ivy to its ridge.
-Sweet rill, farewell! To-morrow's noon again,
Shall hide me wooing long thy wildwood strain;
But now the sun has gain'd his western road,
And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad.
While, near the midway cliff, the silver'd kite
In many a whistling circle wheels her flight;
Slant wat'ry lights, from parting clouds a-pace,
Travel along the precipice's base;
Cheering its naked waste of scatter'd stone
By lychens grey, and scanty moss o'ergrown,
Where scarce the foxglove peeps, and thistle's beard,
And desert stone-chat, all day long, is heard.
How pleasant, as the yellowing sun declines,
And with long rays and shades the landscape shines;
1 The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain-inclosure.
2 Gill is also, I believe, a term confined to this country. Glen, gill,
and dingle, have the same meaning.
3 The reader, who has made the tour of this country, will recognize
in this description the features which characterize the lower waterfall
in the gardens of Rydale.




j 4               An Evening Walk
To mark the birches' stems all golden light,
That lit the dark slant woods with silvery white!
The willows weeping trees, that twinkling hoar,
Glanc'd oft upturn'd along the breezy shore,
Low bending o'er the colour'd water, fold
Their moveless boughs and leaves like threads of gold;
The skiffs with naked masts at anchor laid,
Before the boat-house peeping thro' the shade;,
Th' unwearied glance of woodman's echo'd stroke;
And curling from the trees the cottage smoke.
Their pannier'd train a group of potters goad,
Winding from side to side up the steep road;
The peasant from yon cliff of fearful edge
Shot, down the headlong pathway darts his sledge;
Bright beams the lonely mountain horse illume,
Feeding 'mid purple heath, "green rings,"1 and brooni;
While the sharp slope the slacken'd team confounds,
Downward 2 the pond'rous timber-wain resounds;
Beside their sheltering cross 3 of wall, the flock
Feeds on in light, nor thinks of winter's shock;
In foamy breaks the rill, with merry song;
Dash'd down the rough rock, lightly leaps along;
From lonesome chapel at the mountain's feet,
Three humble bells their rustic chime repeat;
Sounds from the water-side the-hammer'd boat;
And blasted quarry thunders heard remote.
Ev'n here, amid the sweep of endless woods,
Blue pomp of lakes, high cliffs, and falling floods,
Not undelightful are the simplest charms
Found by the verdant door of mountain farms.
Sweetly 4 ferocious round his native walks;
Gaz'd by his sister-wives, the monarch stalks,
Spur clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread,
A crest of purple tops his warrior head.
1 "Vivid rings of green."-GREENWOOD'S Poem on Shooting.
2 " Down 'the rough slope the pond'rous waggon rings."-BEATTIE.
3 These rude structures, to protect the flocks, are frequent in this
country. the traveller may recollect one in Withbirne, another 'up6n
Whllnatter. '
4 " Dolcemente feroce."-TAsso.'
'In this description of the cock, I remembered a' spirited one of the
same' animil in L'Agriculture, ou Les Georgiques Franfaises of M.
Rossuet.




T      Evenihg Walk                   '5 -
Bright sparks his black and haggard eyeball hurls
Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls;             )
Whose state, like pine-trees, waving to and fro,
Droops, and o'er canopies his regal brow;
On tiptoe rear'd he blows his clarion throat,
Threaten'd by faintly answering farms remote.
Bright'ning the cliffs between where sombrous pine,.
And yew-trees o'er the silver rocks recline,
I love to mark the quarry's moving trains,
Dwarf pannier'd steeds, and men, and numerous wains:
How busy the enormous hive within,
While Echo dallies with the various din!
Some, hardly heard their chisel's clinking sound,
Toil, small as pigmies, in the gulph profound;
Some, dim between th' aerial cliffs descry'd,
O'erwalk the viewless plank from side to side;
These by the pale-blue rocks that ceaseless ring
Glad from their airy baskets hang and sing.
Hung o'er a cloud, above the steep that rears
Its edge all flame, the broad'ning sun appears;
A long blue bar its aegis orb divides,
And breaks the spreading of its golden tides;
And now it touches on the purple steep
That flings his shadow on the pictur'd deep.
Cross the calm lakes blue shades the cliffs aspire, / f
With tow'rs and woods a "prospect all on fire;" ~J
The coves and secret hollows thro' a ray
Of fainter gold a purple gleam betray;
The gilded turf arrays in richer green
Each speck of lawn the broken rocks between;
Deep yellow beams the scatter'd boles illume,
Far in the level forest's central gloom;
Waving his hat, the shepr.d in the vale
Directs his winding do(g the cliffs to scale,
That, barking busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks;
Where oaks o'erhang the road the radiance shoots
On tawny earth, wild weeds, and twisted roots;
The Druid 1 stones their lighted fane unfold,
And all the babbling brooks are liquid gold;.
1 Not far from Broughton is a Druid monument,'of which 'I do riot
recollect that any tour descriptive of this country makes.tnentin. l
Perhaps 'this poem may fall into the hands of some curious traveller,'
who may thank me for informing him, that up the Duddon, the rilve




6             An Evening Wa.
Sunk 1 to a curve the day-star lessens still,
Gives one bright glance, and sinks behind the hill.
In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim,
Thin silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame;
When up the hills, as now, retreats the light,
Strange apparitions mock the village sight.
A desperate form appears, that spurs his steed,
Along the midway cliffs with violent speed;
Unhurt pursues his lengthen'd flight, while all
Attend, at every stretch, his headlong fall.
Anon, in order mounts a gorgeous show
Of horsemen shadows winding to and fro;
And now the van is gilt with evening's beam,
The rear thro' iron brown betrays a sullen gleam;
Lost 2 gradual o'er the heights in pomp they go,
While silent stands th' admiring vale below;
Till, but the lonely beacon all is fled.
That tips with eve's last gleam his spiry head.
Now while the solemn evening Shadows sail,
On red slow-waving pinions down the vale,
And, fronting the bright west in stronger lines,
The oak its dark'ning boughs and foliage twines,
I love beside the flowing lake to stray,
Where winds the road along the secret bay;
By rills that tumble down the woody steeps,
And run in transport to the dimpling deeps;
Along the "wild meand'ring" shore to view,
Obsequious Grace the winding swan pursue.
He swells his lifted chest, and backward flings
His bridling neck between his tow'ring wings;
Stately, and burning in his pride, divides
And glorying looks around, the silent tides:
On as he floats, the silver'd waters glow,
Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow.
While tender Cares and mild domestic Loves,
With furtive watch pursue her as she moves;
The female with a meeker charm succeeds,
And her brown little ones around her leads,
which forms the estuary at Broughton, may be found some of the most
romantic scenery of these mountains.
1 From Thomson: see Scott's Critical Essays.
2 See a description of an appearance of this kind in Clark's " Survey
)f the Lakes," accompanied with vouchers of its veracity that may amuse
'ie reader.




An Evening Walk                      7
Nibbling the water lilies as they pass,
Or playing wanton with the floating grass:
She in a mother's care, her beauty's pride
Forgets, unweary'd watching every side,
She calls them near, and with affection sweet
Alternately relieves their weary feet;
Alternately 1 they mount her back, and rest
Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest.
Long may ye roam these hermit waves that sleep,
In birch besprinkl'd cliffs embosom'd deep;
These fairy holms untrodden, still, and green,
Whose shades protect the hidden wave serene;
Whence fragrance scents the water's desart gale,
The violet, and the lily2 of the vale;
Where, tho' her far-off twilight ditty steal,
They not the trip of harmless milkmaid feel.
Yon tuft conceals your home, your cottage bow'r,
Fresh water rushes strew the verdant floor;
Long grass and willows form the woven wall,
And swings above the roof the poplar tall.
Thence issuing oft, unwieldy as ye stalk,.
Ye crush with broad black feet your flow'ry walk;
Safe from your door ye hear at breezy morn,    ~
The hound, the horse's tread, and mellow horn;
At peace inverted your lithe necks ye lave,
With the green bottom strewing o'er the wave;
No ruder sound your desart haunts invades,
Than waters dashing wild, or rocking shades.
Ye ne'er, like hapless human wanderers, throw
Your young on winter's winding sheet of snow.
Fair swan! by all a mother's joys caress'd,
Haply some wretch has ey'd, and call'd thee bless'd;
Who faint, and beat by summer's breathless ray,
Hath dragg'd her babes along this weary way;
While arrowy fire extorting feverish groans,
Shot stinging through her stark o'er-labour'd bones.
-With backward gaze, lock'd joints, and step of pain,,
Her seat scarce left, she strives, alas. in vain,
To teach their limbs along the burning road
1 This is a fact of which I have been an eye-witness.
2 The lily of the valley is found in great abundance in the smaller
islands of Winandermere.




8             An Evening Walk
A few short steps to totter with their load,
Shakes her numb arm; that slumbers with its weight,
And eyes through tears the mountain's shadeless height';
And bids her soldier come her woes to share,
Asleep on Bunker's charnel hill afar, Y
For hope's deserted well why wistful look?
Chok'd is the pathway, and the pitcher broke..
I see her now, deny'd to lay her head,
On cold blue nights, in:hut or straw-built shed;
Turn to a silent smile their sleepy cry,
By pointing to a -shooting star on high:.
I hear, while in the forest depth he sees,
The Moon's?fix'd:gaze between the opening trees,
In broken sounds her elder grief demand,
And skyward lift, like one that prays, his hand,
If, in that country, where he dwells afar,
His father views that good, that kindly star;
-Ah me! all light is mute amid the gloom,
The interlunar cavern of the tomb.
-When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide,
And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
Where the brook brawls along the painful road,
Dark with bat haunted ashes stretching broad,
The distant dlock-forgot, and chilling dew,
Pleas'd thro' the dusk their breaking smiles to view,
Oft has she taught'them on her lap to play
Delighted, with the glow-worm's harmless ray
Toss'd light from hand to hand; while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around.
Oh! when the bitter showers her path assail,
And roars between the hills the torrent gale,
-No more her breath can thaw their fingers'cold,
Their frozen arms 'her neck no more can fold;
Scarce heard, their chattering lips her shoulder chill,
And her cold 'back their colder bosoms thrill;
All blind she wilders o'er the lightless heath,
Led by Fear's coid wet hand, and dogg'd by Death;
Death, as she turns her neck the kiss to seek,
Breaks off the dreadful'kiss with angry shriek.
Snatch'd from'her shoulder with despairing moan,
She clasps them at that dim-seen roofless stone. —
" Now ruthless Tempest launch.'thy deadliest dart'
Fall fires-but let us perish heart to heart."




An Evening Walk.9


Weak roof a cow'ring form two babes to shield,
And faint the fire a dying heart can yield;
Press the sad kiss, fond mother! vainly fears
Thy flooded cheek to wet them with its tears;
Soon shall the Lightning hold before thy head
His torch, and shew them slumbering in their bed,
No tears can chill them, and no bosom warms,
Thy breast their death-bed, coffin'd in thine arms.
Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar,
Heard by calm lakes, as peeps the folding star,
Where the duck dabbles 'mid.the rustling sedge,
And feeding pike starts from the water's edge,
Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
Wetting, that drip upon the water still;
And heron, as resounds the trodden shore,
Shoots upward, darting his long neck before.
While, by the scene compos'd the breast subsides,
Nought wakens or disturbs its tranquil tides;
Nought but the char that for the may-fly leaps,
And breaks the mirror of the circling deeps;
Or clock, that blind against the wanderer born,
Drops at his feet, and stills his droning horn.
-The whistling swain that plods his ringing way
Where the slow waggon winds along the bay;
The sugh 1 of swallow flocks that twittering sweep,
The solemn curfew swinging long and deep;
The talking boat that moves with pensive sound,
Or drops his anchor down with plunge profound;
Of boys that bathe remote the faint uproar,
And restless piper wearying out the shore;
These all to swell the village murmurs blend,
That soften'd from. the water-head descend.
While in sweet cadence rising small and still
The far-off minstrels of the haunted hill,
As the last bleating of the fold expires,
Tune in the mountain dells their water lyres.
Now with religious awe the farewell light
Blends with the solemn colouring of the night;
'Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow,
And round the West's proud lodge their shadows throw,
1 "Sugh," a Scotch word, expressive, as Mr. Gilpin explains it, of
the sound of the motion of a stick through the air, or of the wind
passing through the trees. See Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night.
B




10


An Evening Walk


Like Una shining on her gloomy way,
The half seen form of Twilight roams astray;
Thence, from three paly loopholes mild and small,
Slow lights upon the lake's still bosom fall,
Beyond the mountain's giant reach that hides
In deep determin'd gloom his subject tides.
-'Mid the dark steeps repose the shadowy streams,
As touch'd with dawning moonlight's hoary gleams,
Long streaks of fairy light the wave illume
With bordering lines of intervening gloom,
Soft o'er the surface creep the lustres pale.
Tracking with silvering path the changeful gale.
-'Tis restless magic all; at once the bright
Breaks on.the shade, the shade upon the light,
Fair Spirits are abroad; in sportive chase
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face,
While music stealing round the glimmering deeps
Charms the tall circle of th' enchanted steeps.
-As thro' th' astonish'd woods the notes ascend,
The mountain streams their rising song suspend;
Below Eve's listening Star the sheep walk stills
Its drowsy tinklings on th' attentive hills;
The milkmaid stops her ballad, and her pail
Stays its low murmur in th' unbreathing vale;
No night-duck clamours for his wilder'd mate,.. Aw'd, while below the Genii hold their state.
-The pomp is fled, and mute the wondrous strains,
No wrack of all the pageant scene remains,
So2 vanish those fair Shadows, human joys,
But Death alone their vain regret destroys.
Unheeded Night has overcome the. vales,
On the dark earth the baffl'd vision fails,
If peep between the clouds a star on high,
There turns for glad repose the weary eye,
The latest lingerer of the forest train,
The lone black fir, forsakes the faded plain;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke no more,
Lost in the deepen'd darkness, glimmers hoar;
High towering from the sullen dark-brown: mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain steeps appear,
Alluding to this passage of Spenser"Her angel face
As the great eye of Heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in that shady place."
" So break those glittering shadows, human jys." —YOUNG.




An Evening Walk


II


Thence red from different heights with restless gleam
Small cottage lights across the water stream,
Nought else of man or life remains behind
To call from other worlds the wilder'd mind,
Till pours the wakeful bird her solemn strains
Heard 1 by the night-calm of the wat'ry plains.
-No purple prospects now the mind employ
Glowing in golden sunset tints of joy,
But o'er the sooth'd accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find
The soft gloom deep'ning on the tranquil mind. i
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah no! as fades the vale, they fade away.
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains,
Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.
The bird, with fading light who ceas'd to thread
Silent the hedge or steaming rivulet's bed,
From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon
Salute with boding note the rising moon,
Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground,
And pouring deeper blue to ASther's bound;
Rejoic'd her solemn pomp of clouds to fold
In robes of azure, fleecy white, and gold,
While rose and poppy, as the glow-worm fades,
Checquer with paler red the thicket shades.
Now o'er the eastern hill, where Darkness broods
O'er all its vanish'd dells, and lawns, and woods
Where but a mass of shade the sight can trace,
She lifts in silence up her lovely face;
Above the gloomy valley flings her light,
Far to the western slopes with hamlets white;
And gives, where woods the checquer'd upland strew,
To the green corn of summer autumn's hue.
Thus Hope, first pouring from her blessed horn
Her dawn, far lovelier than the Moon's own morn;
'Till higher mounted, strives in vain to cheer
The weary hills, impervious, black'ning neat;
-Yet does she still, undaunted, throw the while
On darling spots remote her tempting smile.
-Ev'n now she decks for me a distant scene,
(For dark and broad the gulph of time between)
1 "Charming the night-calm with her powerful song." A line ot
one of our older poets.




12           An Evening Walk
Gilding that cottage with her fondest ray,
(Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my way.;;:
How fair its lawn and silvery woods appear!
How sweet its streamlet murmurs in mine ear!)
Where we, my friend, to golden days shall rise,.
'Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs.
(For sighs will ever trouble human breath):
Creep hush'd into the tranquil breast of.Death..
i    But now the. clear-bright Moon her zenith gains,
And rimy without speck extend the plains; - -
The deepest dell the mountain's breast displays,
Scarce hides a shadow from her searching rays.;
From the dark-blue "faint silvery threads " divide
The hills, while gleams below the azure tide;
The scene is waken'd, yet its peace unbroke,
By silver'd wreaths of quiet charcoal smoke,: '
That, o'er the ruins of the fallen wood,
Steal down the hills, and spread along the flood.
The song of mountain streams unheard by day,
Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way.
- All air is, as the sleeping water, still,
-/ List'ning th' aerial music of the hill,  '
Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep,
Or shout that wakes the ferry-man from sleep,
Soon follow'd by his hollow-parting oar,
And echo'd hoof approaching the far shore;
Sound of clos'd gate, across the water borne,
Hurrying the feeding hare thro' rustling corn;
The tremulous sob of the complaining owl;
And at long intervals the mill-dog's howl;;
The distant forge's swinging thump profound;
Or yell in the deep woods of lonely hound.




Descriptive Sketches


13


DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES1
TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR AMONG THE ALPS
[DEDICATED] TO
THE REV. ROBERT JONES 2
FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
WERE there, below, a spot of'holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, nature's God that spot to man had given
Where falls the purple morning far and wide
In flakes of light upon the mountain side;
Where with loud voice the power of water shakes
The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who at the call of summer quits his home,          '
And plods through some wide realm o'er vale and height,
Though seeking only holiday delight;
At least, not owning to himself an aim
To which the sage would give a prouder name.
No gains too cheaply earned his fancy cloy,
Though every passing zephyr whispers joy;
Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease,
Feeds the clear current of his sympathies.
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn;
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread:
Moves there a'cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?.
Upward he looks-"and calls it luxury:"'
1 Much the greatest part of this poem was composed during my walks
upon the banks of the Loire in the years 1791', I792. I will only notice
that the description of the valley filled:with mist, beginning —" In
solemn shapes," was taken from that beautiful region of which the
principal features are Lungarn and Sarnen. Nothing that I ever saw
in nature left a more delightful impression on my mind than that.which
I have attempted, alas! how feebly, to convey to others in these lines.
Those two lakes have always interested me especially, from bearing, in
their size and other features, a resemblance to those of the- North of
England. It is much to be deplored that a district so beautiful should
be so unhealthy as it is.
2 For the accompanying letter, see the succeeding volumes of
Wordsworth's prose works. -Ed.
B2




14           Descriptive     Sketches
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend;
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;
While chastening thoughts of.sweetest use, bestowed
By wisdom, moralise his pensive road.
Host-of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre;1
Blesses the moon' that comes with kindly ray,
To light him shaken by his rugged way.
Back from his sight no'bashful children steal;
He sits a brother at the cottage-meal;
His humble looks no shy restraint impart;
Around him plays at will the virgin, heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,.
The maidens eye him with' enquiring glance,
Much wondering by what fit of crazing care,.,
Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there.
A hope, that prudence could not then approve,
That clung to Nature with a truant's love,.
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led;
Her files of road-elms, high above my head..
In long-drawn vista, rustling in:the breeze;
Or where her pathways straggle as they please,
By lonely farms and secret villages.
But lo.! the'Alps ascending white in air,
Toy with the sun' and glitter from afar.
And now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
/   I greet thee,'Chartreuse, while I mourn thy doom., -
Whither is fled.that Power whose frown severe.
Awed sober Reason 'till she crouched in fear?
That Silence, oncei in' deathlike fetters, bound,
Chains that were loosened onily by the sound
Of holy rites chanted in measured round? '
-The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms,,
The cloister startles at the gleam of 'arms.
The thundering tube the aged angler hears,
Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his tears.
Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads,
"Spires, rocks, and lawns a browner night o'erspreads;
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start the:astonished shades at female eyes.':1 The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted-:melancholy or
cheerful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening'or morning
rays....




Descriptive     Sketches             15
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock
The Cross, by angels planted 1 on the aerial rock.
The "parting Genius " sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.2
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
Vallombre,3 'mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.
More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.
-To towns,' whose shades of no rude noise complain,
From ringing team apart and grating wainTo flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows flingThe pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines;
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines.
The loitering traveller hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue,
And track the yellow lights from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills they slowly creep.
Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light; half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs,'the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the lake below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.
How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets  /
1 Alluding to crosses seen on the tops ofthe spiry rocks of Chartreuse,
which have every appearance of being inaccessible.
2 Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.
3 Name of one of the valleys of the Chartreuse.




1i6


Descriptive Sketches


Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales
Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales;
Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore,
Each with its household boat beside the door.;
Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky;
Thy towns,. that cleave, like swallows' nests, on high;
That glimmer hoar in: eve's last light, descried
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,'
Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods;
Thy lake, that, streaked or dappled, blue or grey,
'Mid smoking woods gleams hid from morning's ray.
Slow-travelling down the western hills, to enfold
Its green-tinged margin in a. blaze of gold;
Thy glittering steeples, whence the matin bell
Calls forth the woodman from his desert cell,
And quickens the blithe sound of oars that pass
Along the steaming lake, to early mass.
But now farewell to each and all-adieu
To every charm, and last and chief to you,
Ye lovely maidens that in noontide shade
Rest near your little plots of wheaten glade;
To all that binds the soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing song, and ringlet-tossing dance;
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume
The sylvan cabin's lute-enlivened gloom.
-Alas! the very murmur of the streams
Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams,
While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes on Como's marge,
And lures from bay to bay the vocal barge.
Yet are thy softer arts with power indued
To soothe and cheer the poor man's solitude. -
By silent cottage-doors, the peasant's home
Left vacant for the day, I loved to roam.
But once I pierced the mazes of a wood
In which a cabin undeserted stood;
There an old man an olden measure scanned
On a rude viol touched with withered hand.
As lambs or fawns in April clustering lie
Under a hoary oak's thin canopy,;
Stretched at his feet, with stedfast upward eye,
His children's children listened to the sound;




Descriptive Sketches


i7


-A Hermit with his family around!
But let us hence; for fair Locarno smiles
Embowered in walnut slopes and citron isles:
Or seek at eve the banks of Tusa's stream,
Where, 'mid dim towers and woods, her 1 waters gleam.
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire
The dull-red steeps, and, darkening still, aspire
To where afar rich orange lustres glow
Round undistinguished clouds, and rocks, and snow:
Or, led where Via Mala's chasms confine
The indignant waters of the infait Rhine,
Hang o'er the abyss, whose else impervious gloom
His burning eyes with fearful light illume.
The mind condemned, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe,
With sad congratulation joins the train
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain
Move on-a mighty caravan of pain:
Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the wilderness with shades and springs.
-There be whose lot far otherwise is cast:
Sole human tenant of the piny waste,
By choice or doom a gipsy wanders here,
A nursling babe her only comforter;
Lo, where she sits beneath yon shaggy rock,
A cowering shape half hid in curling smoke!
When lightning among clouds and mountain-snows
Predominates, and darkness comes and goes,
And the fierce torrent, at the flashes broad
Starts, like a horse, beside the glaring roadShe seeks a covert from the battering shower
In the roofed bridge;2 the bridge, in that dread hour,
Itself all trembling at the torrent's power.
Nor is she more at ease on some still night,
When not a star supplies the comfort of its light;
Only the waning moon hangs dull and red:
Above a melancholy mountain's head,
Then sets. In total gloom the Vagrant sighs,
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes;
Or on her fingers counts the distant clock,
1 The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the Alps by
the Simplon Pass.
2 Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood, and covered:
these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of
the scenery in some places.




X18         Descriptive     Sketches
Or, to the drowsy crow of midnight cock,
Listens, or quakes while from the forest's gulf
Howls near and nearer yet the famished wolf.
From the green vale of Urseren smooth and wide
Descend we now, the maddened Reuss our guide;
By rocks that, shutting out the blessed day,
Cling tremblingly to rocks as loose as they;
By cells 1 upon whose image, while he prays,
The kneeling peasant scarcely dares to gaze;
By many a votive death-cross2 planted near,
And watered duly with the pious tear,
That faded silent from the upward eye
Unmoved with each rude form of peril nigh;
Fixed on the anchor left by Him who saves
Alike in whelming snows, and roaring waves.
But soon a peopled region on the sight
Opens-a little world of calm delight;
Where mists, suspended on the expiring gale,
Spread rooflike o'er the deep secluded vale,
And beams of evening slipping in between,
Gently illuminate a sober scene:Here, on the brown wood-cottages 3 they sleep,
There, over rock or sloping pasture creep.
On as we journey, in clear view displayed,
The still vale lengthens underneath its shade
Of low-hung vapour: on the freshened mead
The green light sparkles;-the dim bowers recede.
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull,
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before the admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers,
And antique castles seen through gleamy showers.
From such romantic dreams, my soul, awake,!
To sterner pleasure, where, by Uri's lake
In Nature's pristine majesty outspread,
Winds neither road nor path for foot to tread:
The rocks rise naked as a wall, or stretch
Far o'er the water, hung with groves of beech;
The Catholic religion prevails here: these cells are, as is well
known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the Roman
tombs, along the road side.
2 Crosses, commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the fall of
snow, and other accidents, are very common along this dreadful road.
3 The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built of wood.




Descriptive Sketches


I9


Aerial pines from loftier steeps ascend,
Nor stop but where creation seems to end.
Yet here and there, if 'mid the savage scene
Appears a scanty plot of smiling green,
Up from the lake a zigzag path will creep
To reach a small wood-hut hung boldly on the steep,
-Before those thresholds (never can they know
The face of traveller passing to and fro,)
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning tolled the funeral bell;
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes,
Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes;
The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat
To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat.
Yet thither the world's business finds its way
At times, and tales unsought beguile the day,
And there are those fond thoughts which Solitude,
However stern, is powerless to exclude-.
There doth the maiden watch her lover's sail
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale;
At midnight listens till his parting oar,:
And its last echo, can be heard no more.
And what if ospreys, cormorants, herons, cry
Amid tempestuous vapours driving by,.
Or hovering over wastes too, bleak to rear
That common growth of earth, the foodful ear;
Where the green apple shrivels on the spray,
And pines the unripened pear in summer's kindliest ray;
Contentment shares the desolate domain
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,.
And grasps by fits her sword, and often eyes;
And sometimes, as from rock to rock she bounds
The Patriot nymph starts at imagined sounds,
And, wildly pausing, oft she hangs aghast,~
Whether some old Swiss air hath checked her haste
Or thrill of Spartan fife is caught between the blast..
Swoln with incessant rains from hour to hour,
All day the floods a deepening murmur pour:
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight:    -
Dark is the region as with coming night;.
But what a sudden burst of overpowering light!
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm,
Glances the wheeling eagle's glorious form!




20


Descriptive Sketches


Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine
The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Those lofty cliffs. a hundred streams unfold,
At once to pillars turned that flame with gold:
Behind his sail the peasant shrinks, to shun
The weest, that burns like one dilated sun,
A crucible of mighty compass, felt
By mountains, glowing till they seem to melt.
But, lo! the boatman, overawed, before
The pictured fane of Tell suspends his oar;
Confused the Marathonian tale appears,
While his eyes sparkle with heroic tears.
And who, that walks where men of ancient days'
Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds of praise,
Feels not the spirit of the place control,
Or rouse and agitate his labouring soul?
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or on that highland dell,
Through which rough Garry cleaves his way, can tell
What high resolves exalt the tenderest thought
Of him whom passion rivets to the spot,
Where breathed the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh,
And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye;
Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,
And glad Dundee" in "faint huzzas" expired?
But now with other mind I stand aloneUpon.the summit of this naked cone,
And watch the fearless chamois-hunter chase
His prey, through tracts abrupt of desolate space,
1Through vacant worlds where Nature never gave.
A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,  -
Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep;,.
Thro' worlds where Life, and Voice, and Motion sleep;
Where silent. Hours their deathlike sway extend,
Save when the avalanche breaks loose, to rendIts way with uproar, till the.ruin, drowned
In some dense wood;or gulf of snow profound,
Mocks the. dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound:
-'Tis his, while wandering on from height to height,
To see a planet's pomp and steady light
In the least star of scarce-appearing night;: -
1 For most of the images in the next sixteen verses, I am indebted to
M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his translation of
Coxe's Tour in Switzerland.  -. -;     - -.




Descriptive     Sketches             2 1
While the pale moon moves near him, on the bound
Of ether, shining with diminished round,
And far and wide the icy summits blaze,
Rejoicing in the glory of her rays:
To him the day-star glitters small and bright,
Shorn of its beams, insufferably white,
And he can look beyond the sun, and view
Those fast-receding depths of sable blue
Flying till vision can no more pursue!
-At once bewildering mists around him close,
And cold and hunger are his least of woes;
The Demon of the snow, with angry roar
Descending, shuts for aye his prison door.
Soon with despair's whole weight his spirits sink;
Bread has he none, the snow must be his drink;
And, ere his eyes can close upon the day,
The eagle of the Alps o'ershades her prey.
Now couch thyself where, heard with fear afar,
Thunders through echoing pines the headlong Aar
Or rather stay to taste the mild delights
Of pensive Underwalden's 1 pastoral heights.
-Is there who 'mid these awful wilds, has seen
The native Genii walk the mountain green?
Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal,
Soft music o'er the aerial summit steal?
While o'er the desert, answering every close,
Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and goes.
-And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes,
Nought but the chalets,2 flat and bare, on high
Suspended 'mid the quiet of the sky;
Or distant herds that pasturing upward creep,
And, not untended, climb the dangerous steep.
How still! no irreligious sound or sight
Rouses the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,
And with that voice accords the soothing sound
Of drowsy bells, for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
1 The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more melancholy
disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps; this, if true, may
proceed from their living more secluded.
2 This picture is from the middle region of the Alps. Chalets are
summer huts for the Swiss herdsmen..




22


Descriptive Sketches


Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods' steady sugh;1I
The solitary heifer's deepened low;
Or rumbling, heard remote, of falling snow.
All motions, sounds, and.voices, far and nigh,
Blend in a music of tranquillity;
Save when, a stranger seen below, the boy
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.
When, from the sunny breast of open seas,
/  And bays with myrtle fringed, the southern breeze.
Comes on to gladden April with the sight'
Of green isles widening on each snow-clad height;
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill,.
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
The pastoral Swiss begin the cliffs to scale,.-' Leaving to silence the deserted vale;
And like the Patriarchs in their simple age
Move, as the verdure leads, from stage to stage:
High and more high in summer's heat they go,.
And' hear the rattling thunder far below;
Or steal beneath the mountains, half-deterred,
Where huge rocks tremble to the bellowing herd.
One I behold who, 'cross the foaming flood,
Leaps with a bound of graceful hardihood;..
Another, high on that green ledge;-he gained
The tempting spot with every sinew 'strained;
And downward thence a knot of grass he throws,
Food for his beasts in time of winter snows.
-Far different life from what Tradition hoar
Transmits of happier lot in times of yore!
Then Summer lingered long; and honey.. flowed
From out the rocks, the wild bees' safe abode:
Continual waters welling cheered the waste,...
And plants were wholesome, now.of deadly taste:..
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled,
Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled:
Nor Hunger driven the herds from pastures bare,
To climb the treacherous cliffs for scanty fare.
Then the milk-thistle flourished through the land,And forced. the'full-swoln udder to demand,
Thrice every day, the pail and welcome hand.
Thus does,the father to his children tell
Of banished bliss, by fancy loved too well.
1 " Sugh," a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through
the trees.




Descriptive Sketches
Alas! that human guilt provoked the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.:
Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
A solemn sea! whose billows wide around
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound:
Pines, on the coast, through mist their tops uprear,
That like to leaning masts of stranded ships appear.
A single chasm, a gulf of gloomy blue,
Gapes in the centre of the sea-and, through
That dark mysterious gulf ascending, sound
Innumerable streams with roar profound.
Mount through the nearer vapours notes of birds,
And merry flageolet; the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the heifer's tinkling bell,
Talk, laughter, and perchance a church-tower knell:
Think not, the peasant from aloft has gazed
And heard with heart unmoved, with soul unraised:
Nor is his spirit less enrapt, nor less
Alive to independent happiness,
Then, when he lies, out-stretched, at eventide
Upon the fragrant mountain's purple side:
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley seldom stray,
Nought round its darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind:;
While Hope, reclining upon Pleasure's urn,
Binds her wild wreaths, and whispers his return.
Once, Man entirely free, alone and wild,
Was blest as free-for he was Nature's child.
He, all superior but his God disdained,
Walked none restraining, and by none restrained
Confessed no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought.
As man in his primeval dower arrayed
The image of his glorious Sire displayed,
Even so, by. faithful Nature guarded, here
The traces of primeval Man appear;
The simple dignity no forms debase;
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace:
The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord,


23




24


Descriptive Sketches


His book he prizes, nor neglects his sword;
Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepared
With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard."
And, as his native hills encircle ground
For many a marvellous victory renowned,
The work of Freedom daring to oppose,
With few in arms,1 innumerable foes,
When to those famous fields his steps are led,
An unknown power connects him with the dead:.
For images of other worlds are there;
Awful the light, and holy is the air.
Fitfully, and in flashes, through his soul,
Like sun-lit tempests, troubled transports roll;
His bosom heaves, his Spirit towers amain,
Beyond the senses and their little reign..
And oft, when that dread vision hath past by,
He holds with God himself communion high,
There where the peal of swelling torrents fills
The sky-roofed temple of the eternal hills;
Or when, upon the mountain's silent brow
Reclined, he sees, above him and below,
Bright stars of ice and azure fields of snow;
While needle peaks of granite shooting bare
Tremble in ever-varying tints of air.
And when a gathering weight of shadows brown
Falls on the valleys as the sun goes down;
And Pikes, of darkness named and fear and storms,2
Uplift in quiet their illumined forms,
In sea-like reach of prospect round him spread,
Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy redAwe in his breast with holiest love unites,
And the near heavens impart their own delights.
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows;
That hut which on the hills'so oft employs
His thoughts, the central.point of all his joys.
1 Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small numbers
have gained over their oppressors, the house of Austria;.and in particular, to one fought at Nseffels near Glarus, where three hundred and
thirty men are said to have defeated an army of between fifteen and
twenty thousand Austrians. Scattered over the valley are to be found
eleven stones, with this inscription, I388, the year the battle was fought;
marking out, as I was told upon the spot; the several places where the
Austrians, attempting to make a stand, were repulsed anew.
2 As Schreck-Horn, the pike of terror; Wetter-Horn, the pi.Le ofI
storms, etc., etc.- - ''




Descriptive Sketches                25
And as a swallow, at the hour of rest,
Peeps often ere she darts into her nest,
So to the homestead, where the grandsire tends
A little prattling child, he oft descends,
To glance a look upon the well-matched pair;
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.
There, safely guarded by the woods behind,
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter calling all his terrors round,
And, blest within himself, he shrinks not from the sound.
Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide,
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;
The bound of all his vanity, to deck,
With one bright bell, a favourite heifer's neck;
Well pleased upon some simple annual feast,
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest,
If dairy-produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers dignify the board.
-Alas! in every clime a flying ray,
Is all we have to cheer our wintry way;
And here the unwilling mind may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race;
The churlish gales of penury, that blow
Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow,
To them the gentle groups of bliss deny
That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.
Yet more;-compelled by Powers which only deign
That solitary man disturb their reign,
Powers that support an unremitting strife
With all the tender charities of life,
Full oft the father, when his sons have grown
To manhood, seems their title to disown;
And from his nest amid the storms of heaven
Drives, eagle-like, those sons as he was driven;
With stern composure watches to the plainAnd never, eagle-like, beholds again!
When long-familiar joys are all resigned,
Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind?  ~.
Lo! where through flat Batavia's willowy groves,
Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves;
O'er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,
And search the affections to their inmost cell;
Sweet poison spreads along the listener's veins,
Turning past pleasures into mortal pains;
Poison, which not a frame of steel can brave,




26           Descriptive      Sketches
Bows his young head with sorrow to the grave.1
Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume!
Ye flattering eastern lights, once more the hills illume!
Fresh gales and dews of life's delicious morn,
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return!
Alas! the little joy to man allowed
Fades like the lustre of an evening cloud;
Or like the beauty in a flower installed,
Whose season was, and cannot be recalled.
Yet, when opprest by sickness, grief, or care,
And taught that pain is pleasure's natural heir,
We still confide in more than we can know;
Death would be else the favourite friend of woe.
'Mid'savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine,
Between interminable tracts of pine,
Within a temple stands an awful shrine,
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls.
Oh!. give not me that eye of hard disdain
That views, undimmed, Einsiedlen's 2 wretched fane.
While ghastly faces through the gloom appear,
Abortive joy, and hope that works in fear;
While prayer contends with silenced agony,
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die.
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope-oh, pass and leave it there!
The tall sun, pausirfg on an Alpine spire,
Flings o'er the wilderness a stream of fire:
Now meet we other pilgrims ere the day
Close on the remnant of their weary way;
While they are drawing toward the sacred floor
Where, so they fondly think, the worm shall gnaw no more.
How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste
The fountains 3 reared for them amid the waste!
Their thirst they slake:-they wash their toil-worn feet
And some with tears of joy each other greet.
Yes, I must see you when ye first behold
Those holy turrets tipped with evening gold,
1 The well-known effect of the famous air, called in French Ranz des
Vaches, upon the Swiss troops.
2 This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from
every corner of the Catholic world, labouring under mental or bodily
afflictions.
3 Rude fountains built and covered with sheds for the accommodation
of the Pilgrims, in their ascent of the mountain.




Descriptive Sketches                27
In that glad moment will for you a sigh
Be heaved, of charitable sympathy; '
In that glad moment when your hands are prest
In mute devotion on the thankful breast!
Last, let us turn to Chamouny that shields
With rocks and gloomy woods her fertile fields:
Five streams of ice amid her cots descend,
And with wild flowers and blooming orchards blend;A scene more fair than what the Grecian feigns
Of purple lights and ever-vernal plains;
Here all the seasons revel hand in hand:
'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned,
They sport beneath that mountain's matchless height
That holds no commerce with the summer night.
From age to age, throughout his lonely bounds
The crash of ruin fitfully resounds;
Appalling havoc! but serene his brow,
Where daylight lingers on perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars above, and all is black below.
What marvel then if many a Wanderer sigh,
While roars the sullen Arve in anger by,
That not for thy reward, unrivalled Vale!
Waves the ripe harvest in the autumnal gale;
That thou, the slave of slaves, art doomed to pine
And droop while no Italian arts are thine,
To soothe or cheer, to soften or refine.
Hail Freedom! whether it was mine to stray,
With shrill winds whistling round my lonely way,
On the bleak sides of Cumbria's heath-clad moors,
Or where dank sea-weed lashes Scotland's shores;
To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing rose,
And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows;
Still have I found, where Tyranny prevails,
That virtue languishes and pleasure fails,
While the remotest hamlets blessings share
In thy loved presence known, and only there;
Heart-blessings-outward treasures too which the eye
Of the sun peeping-through the clouds can spy,
And every passing breeze will testify.
There, to the porch, belike with jasmine bound
Or woodbine wreaths, a smoother path is wound;
The housewife there a brighter garden sees,
Where hum on busier wing her happy bees;
'On infant cheeks there fresher roses blow;..
And grey-haired men look up with livelier brow,- -




28


Descriptive Sketches


To greet the traveller needing food and rest;
Housed for the night, or but a half-hour's guest.
And oh, fair France! though now the traveller sees
Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze;
Though martial songs have banished songs of love,
And nightingales desert the village grove,
Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms,
And the short thunder, and the flash of arms;
That cease, not till night falls, when far and nigh,
Sole sound, the Sourd.l prolongs his mournful cry!
-Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads her power
Beyond the cottage-hearth, the cottage-door:
All nature smiles, and owns beneath her eyes
Her fields peculiar, and-peculiar skies.
Yes, as I roamed where Loiret's waters glide
Through rustling aspens heard from side.to side,
When from October clouds a milder light
Fell where the blue flood rippled into white;
Methought from every cot the watchful bird
Crowed with ear-piercing power till then unheard;
Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams,
Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;
Chasing those pleasant dreams, the falling leaf
Awoke a fainter sense of moral grief;
The measured echo of the distant flail
Wound in more welcome cadence down the vale;
With more majestic course 2 the water rolled,
And ripening foliage shone with richer gold.
t  -But foes are gathering-Liberty must raise.
Red on the hills her beacon's, far-seen blaze;
Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower!Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour!
Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted ire
Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire:.
Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth;
As if a new:made heaven were hailing a new earth!
-All cannot be: the promise i$S too fair
For creatures doomed to breathe terrestrial air.:
Yet not for this will sober reason frown
Upon that promise, nor the.hope disown;.
1 An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at
the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.
2 The duties up6n many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant,
that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water carriage, were
obliged to transport their goods by land.  '




Guilt and Sorrow


29,


She knows that only from high aims ensue
Rich guerdons, and to them alone are due.
Great God! by whom the strifes of men are weighed':
In an impartial balance, give thine aid
To the just cause; and, oh-! do thou-preside
Over the mighty stream now spreading wide:  '
So shall its waters, from the heavens supplied.
In copious showers, from earth -by wholesome springs,;
Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nile-like wings!
And grant that every sceptred child of clay
Who: cries presumptuous, "Here the flood shall stay,"
May in its progress see thy guiding hand,
And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand;
Or, swept in anger from the insulted shore,.
Sink with his servile bands, to:rise no more!.
To-night,. my Friend, within this humble cot.:..:
Be scorn and fear and hope alike forgot.,
In timely sleep; and when, at break of day,
On the tall peaks the glistening sunbeams play,
With a light heart our course we may renew,
The.first'whose footsteps print the mountain dew.
(I793)                  -.,
GUILT AND SORROW:
OR, INCIDENTS UPON SALISBURY PLAIN 1;... I ).  *  *.;  i
I              I.
A TRAVELLER on the skirt of Sarum's Plain..
Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare;'::: i
Stooping his gait, but not as if to gain
Help from the staff he bore; for mien and air
Were hardy, though his cheek seemed worn with care
Both of the time to come, and time long fled:      i
Down fell in straggling locks his thin grey hair;A coat he wore of military red -.
But faded, and stuck o'er with many a patch and shred.
1 Unwilling to be unnecessarily particular, I have assigned this poem
to the dates 1793 and '94; but in fact much of the "' FemaleVagrant's "',
story was composed at least two years before.
* "The Female Vagrant," as originally printed, forms the second part of the
present poem, which begins with stanza xxili,-. v.-Ed..




30


Guilt and Sorrow


II
While thus he journeyed, step by step led on,
He saw and passed a stately inn, full sure
That welcome in such house for him was none.
No board inscribed the needy to allure
Hung there, no bush proclaimed to old and poor
And desolate, '" Here you will find a friend!"
The pendent grapes glittered above the door;On he must pace, perchance 'till night descend,
Where'er the dreary roads their bare white lines extend.
III
The gathering clouds grow red with stormy fire,
In streaks diverging wide and mounting high;
That inn he long had passed; the distant spire,
Which oft as he looked back had fixed his eye,
Was lost, though still he looked, in the blank sky.
Perplexed and comfortless he gazed around,
And scarce could any trace of man descry,
Save cornfields stretched and stretching without bound;
But where the sower dwelt was nowhere to be found.
IV
No tree was there, no meadow's pleasant green,
No brook to wet his lip or soothe his ear;
Long files of corn-stacks here and there were seen,
But not one dwelling-place his heart to cheer.
Some labourer, thought he, may perchance be near;
And so he sent a feeble shout-in vain;
No voice made answer, he could only hear
Winds rustling over plots of unripe grain,
Or whistling thro' thin grass along the unfurrowed plain.
V
Long had he fancied each successive slope
Concealed some cottage, whither he might turn
And rest; but now along heaven's darkening cope
The crows rushed by in eddies, homeward borne,
Thus warned he sought some shepherd's spreading thorn
Or hovel from the storm to shield his head,
But sought in vain; for now, all wild, forlorn,
And vacant, a huge waste around him spread;
The wet cold ground, he feared, must be his only bed.




Guilt and Sorrow


31


VI
And be it so-for to the chill night shower
And the sharp wind his head he oft hath bared;
A Sailor he, who many a wretched hour
Hath told; for, landing after labour hard,
Full long endured in hope of just reward,
He to an armed fleet was forced away
By seamen, who perhaps themselves had shared
Like fate; was hurried off, a helpless prey,
'Gainst all that in his heart, or theirs perhaps, said nay.
VII
For years the work of carnage did not cease,
And death's dire aspect daily he surveyed,
Death's minister; then came his glad release,
And hope returned, and pleasure fondly made
Her dwelling in his dreams. By Fancy's aid
The happy husband flies, his arms to throw
Round his wife's neck; the prize of victory laid
In her full lap, he sees such sweet tears flow
As if thenceforth nor pain nor trouble she could know.
VIII
Vain hope! for fraud took all that he had earned.
The lion roars and gluts his tawny brood
Even in the desert's heart; but he, returned,
Bears not to those he loves their needful food.
His home approaching, but in such a mood
That from his sight his children might have run.
He met a traveller, robbed him, shed his blood;
And when the miserable work was done
He fled, a vagrant since, the murderer's fate to shun.
IX
From that day forth no place to him could be
So lonely, but that thence might come a pang
Brought from without to inward misery.
Now, as he plodded on, with sullen clang
A sound of chains along the desert rang;
He looked, and saw upon a gibbet high
A human body that in irons swang,
Uplifted by the tempest whirling by;
And, hovering, round it often did a raven fly.




32            Guilt and: Sorrow
x
It was a spectacle which none might view,
in spot so savage, but with shuddering pain;
Nor only did for him at once renew
All he had feared from man, but roused a train
Of the mind's phantoms, horrible as vain.
The stones, as if to cover him from day,:
Rolled at his back along the living plain;
He fell, and without sense or motion lay;
But, when the trance was gone,' feebly pursued his way.
XI
As one whose brain habitual phrensy fires
Owes to the fit in which his soul hath tossed  '
Profounder quiet, when the fit retires,
Even so the dire phantasma which had crossed
His sense, in sudden vacancy quite lost,
Left his mind still as a deep evening stream.
Nor, if accosted now, in thought engrossed,
Moody, or inly troubled, would he seem
To traveller who might talk of any casual theme.
XII
Hurtle the clouds in deeper darkness piled,
Gone is the raven timely rest to seek;
He seemed the only creature in the wild
On whom the elements their rage might wreak;
Save that the bustard, of those regions bleak
Shy tenant, seeing by the uncertain light
A man there wandering, gave a mournful shriek,-,,And half upon the ground, with strange affright,
Forced hard against the wind a thick unwieldy flight.
XIII
All, all was cheerless to the horizon's bound;
The weary'eye-which, wheresoe'er it strays,
Marks nothing but the red sun's setting round,
Or on the earth strange lines, in former days
Left by gigantic arms-at length surveys
What seems ar antique castle spreading wide;-:
Hoary and naked are its walls, and raise:: '
Their brow sublime-:: in- shelter there to bide
He turned, while rain poured down smoking-on every side.




Guilt and Sorrow


33


XIV
Pile of Stone-henge! so proud to hint yet keep
Thy secrets, thou that lov'st to stand and hear
The Plain resounding to the whirlwind's sweep,
Inmate of lonesome Nature's endless year;
Even if thou saw'st the giant wicker rear
For sacrifice its throngs of living men,
Before thy face did- ever wretch appear,
Who in his heart had groaned with deadlier pain
Than he who, tempest-driven, thy shelter now would gain.
xv
Within that fabric of mysterious form,
Winds met in conflict, each by turns supreme;
And, from the perilous ground dislodged, through storm
And rain, he wildered on, no moon to stream
From gulf of parting clouds one friendly beam,
Nor any friendly sound his footsteps led;
Once did the lightning's faint disastrous gleam
Disclose a naked guide-post's double head,
Sight which tho' lost at once a gleam of pleasure shed.
XVI
No swinging sign-board creaked from cottage elm
To stay his steps with faintness overcome;
'Twas dark and void as ocean's watery realm
Roaring with storms beneath night's starless gloom;
No gipsy cowered o'er fire of furze or broom;
No labourer watched his red kiln glaring bright,
Nor taper glimmered dim from sick man's room;
Along the waste no line of mournful light
From lamp of lonely toll-gate streamed athwart the night.
XVII
At length, though hid in clouds, the moon arose;
The downs were visible-and now revealed
A structure stands, which two bare slopes enclose.
It was a spot, where, ancient vows fulfilled,
Kind pious hands did to the Virgin build
A lonely Spital, the belated swain
From the night terrors of that waste to shield;
But there no human being could remain,
And now the walls are named the "Dead House" of the
plain.          '
C




34


-Guilt and Sorrow


XVIII
Though he had little cause to love the abode
Of man, or covet sight of mortal face,
Yet when faint beams of light that ruin showed,
How glad he was at length to find some trace
Of human shelter in that dreary place.
Till to his flock the early shepherd goes,
Here shall much-needed sleep his frame embrace.
In a dry nook where fern the floor bestrows
He lays his stiffened limbs,-his eyes begin to close;
XIX
X —I-X
When hearing a deep sigh, that seemed to come.
From one who mourned in;sleep, he raised his head,
And saw a woman in the naked room
Outstretched, and turning on a restless bed:
The moon a wan dead light around her shed.
He waked her-spake in tone that would: not fail,
He hoped, to calm her-mind; but ill he sped,
- For of that ruin she had heard a tale
(Which now with freezing.thoughts did all her powers assail;
xx
Had heard of one who, forced from storms to shroud,
Felt the loose walls of this decayed Retreat
Rock to incessant neighings shrill and loud,
While his horse pawed the floor with furious heat;
Till on a stone, that sparkled to his feet,
Struck, and still struck again, the troubled horse:
The man half raised the stone with pain and sweat,
Half raised, for well his arm might lose its force
Disclosing the grim head of a late murdered corse.
XXI..
Such tale of this lone mansion she had learned,
And, when that shape, with eyes in sleep half drowned,
By the moon's sullen lamp she first discerned,
Cold stony horror all her senses bound.:.
Her he addressed in words of cheering sound;
Recovering heart, like answer did she make;.
And well it was that, of the corse there found,  -:'
Jn converse that ensued she nothing spake;:;.
She knew not what dire pangs in him such tale could wake..




Guilt.and' Sorrow


35


XXII
But soon his voice and words of kind intent
Banished that dismal thought; and now the wind
In fainter howlings told its rage was spent:
Meanwhile discourse ensued of various kind, -
Which by degrees a confidence of mind.
And mutual interest failed not to create.
And, to a natural sympathy resigned,
In that forsaken building where they sate.The Woman thus retraced her own untoward fate........
(II). XXIII 1.
"By Derwent's side. my father dwelt-a man
Of virtuous life, by pious parents bred;
And I believe that, soon as I began..To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
And afterwards, by my good father taught,
I read, and loved the books in which I read;
For books in every neighbouring house I sought,
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.
XXIV.. -...
"A little croft we owned-a plot of corn,
A garden stored with peas, and mint, and thyme,
1 Here began the earlier poem, '-"The Female Vagrant," ending with
stanza L. of the present text. The first two verses originally ran as
follows:MY Father was a good and pious man,
An honest man by honest parents bred,
And I believe that, soon as I began  ' '-.
To lisp, hemade me kneel beside my bed,
And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
And afterwards, 'by my good father taught,
I read, and loved the books in which I read';
For books in every neighbouring house I sought,-;
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.
Can I forget what charms did once adorn -
My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,
And rose, and lily, for the sabbath morn?
'The sabbah bells, and their-:delightful chime,;.'
The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;
My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;
The cowslip-gathering in June's dewy pride:;-,  -  -
The swans, 'that, when lsought the water-side,;  ' '.
From far to meet me catme, pireading their"snowy.~pridre?'. '  F
"  i; "




36


Guilt and Sorrow


And flowers for posies, oft on Sunday morn
Plucked while the church bells rang their earliest chime.
Can I forget our freaks at shearing time!
My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;
The cowslip-gathering in June's dewy prime;
The swans that with white chests upreared in pride
Rushing and racing came to meet me at the water-side.
xxv
"The staff I well remember which upbore
The bending body of my active sire;
His seat beneath the honied sycamore
Where the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;
When market-morning came, the neat attire
With which, though bent on haste, myself I decked;
Our watchful house-dog, that would tease and tire
The stranger till its barking-fit I checked;
The red-breast, known for years, which at my casement
pecked.
xxVI
"The suns of twenty summers danced along, —
Too little marked how fast they rolled away:
-But, through severe mischance and cruel wrong,
My father's substance fell into decay:
We toiled and struggled, hoping for a day
When Fortune might put on a kinder look;
But vain were wishes, efforts vain as they;-He from his old hereditary nook
- Must part; the summons came;-our final leave we took.
xxvIr
"It was indeed a miserable hour
When, from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,
Peering above the trees, the steeple tower
That on his marriage day sweet music made!
Till then, he hoped his bones might there be laid
Close by my mother in their native bowers:
Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed;I could not pray: —through tears that fell in showers
Glimmered our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours I
XXVIII
"There was a Youth whom I had loved so long,
That when I loved him not I cannot say:




Guilt and Sorrow


37


'Mid the green mountains many a thoughtless song
We two had sung, like gladsome birds in May;
When we began to tire of childish play,
We seemed still more and more to prize each other;
We talked of marriage and our marriage day;
And I in truth did love him like a brother,
For never could I hope to meet with such another.
XXIX
"Two years were passed since to a distant town
He had repaired to ply a gainful trade:
What tears of bitter grief, till then unknown!
What tender vows, our last sad kiss delayed!
To him we turned:-we had no other aid:
Like one revived, upon his neck I wept;
/And her whom he had loved in joy, he said,
\He well could love in grief; his faith he kept;
\And in a quiet home once more my father slept.
XXX.
"We lived in peace and comfort; and were blest
With daily bread, by constant toil supplied.
Three lovely babes had lain upon my breast;
And often, viewing their sweet smiles, I sighed,
And knew not why. My happy father died,
When threatened war reduced the children's meal:
/Thrice happy! that for him the grave could hide
I The empty loom, cold hearth, and silent wheel,
And tears that flowed for: ills which patience might not heal.
XXXI
"'Twas a hard change; an evil time was come;
We had no hope, and no relief could gain:
But soon, with proud parade, the noisy drum
Beat round to clear the streets of want and pain.
My husband's arms now only served to strain
Me and his children hungering in his view;
In such dismay my prayers and tears were vain:
To join those miserable men he flew,
And now to the sea-coast, with numbers more, we drew.
XXXII
" There were we long neglected, and we bore
Much sorrow ere the, fleet its anchor weighed;




38


Guilt and. Sorrow


Green fields before us, and:our native shore,:
We breathed a pestilential air, that made
Ravage for which no knell was heard. We prayed
For our departure; wished and wished-nor knew,
'Mid that long sickness and those hopes delayed,
That happier days we never more must view.
The parting signal streamed-at last the land withdrew.
XXXIII
"But the calm summer season now was past.
On as we drove, the equinoctial deep
Ran mountains high before the howling blast,.
And many perished in the whirlwind's sweep.
We gazed with terror on their gloomy sleep,
Untaught that soon such anguish must ensue,
Our hopes such harvest of affliction reap,
That we the mercy of the waves should rue:
We reached the western world, a poor devoted crew.
XXXIV
"The pains and plagues that on our heads came down,
Disease and famine, agony and fear,
In wood or wilderness, in:camp or town,
LIt would unman the firmest heart to hear.
— All perished-all in one remorseless year,
'Husband and children! one by one, by sword
And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear
Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board:
A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored."
XXXV
xxxv
Here paused:she of all present thought forlorn,
Nor voice nor sound, that moment's pain expressed,
Yet Nature, with excess of grief o'erborne,
From her full eyes their watery load released.
He too was mute; and, ere her weeping ceased,
He rose, and to the ruin's portal went,
And saw the dawn opening the silvery east
With rays of promise, north and southward sent;
And soon with crimson fire kindled the firmament.,
XXXVI
"O come," he cried, ",come, after weary night
Of such rough storm, this happy change: to view."




Guilt and Sorrow


39


So forth she came, and eastward looked; the sight
Over her brow like dawn of gladness threw;
Upon her cheek, to which its youthful hue
Seemed to return, dried the last lingering tear,
And from her grateful heart a fresh one drew:
The whilst her comrade to her pensive cheer
Tempered fit words of hope; and the lark warbled near.
XXXVII
They looked and saw a lengthening road, and wain
That rang down a bare slope not far remote:
The barrows glistered bright with drops of rain,
Whistled the waggoner with merry note,
The cock far off sounded his clarion throat;
But town, or farm, or hamlet, none they viewed,
Only were told there stood a lonely cot
A long mile thence. While thither they pursued
Their way, the Woman thus her mournful tale renewed.
XXXVIII
"Peaceful as this immeasurable plain
Is now, by beams of dawning light imprest,
In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main;
The very ocean hath its hour of rest.
I too forgot the heavings of my breast.
How quiet 'round me ship and ocean were!
As quiet all within me. I was blest,
And looked, and fed upon the silent air
Until it seemed to bring-a joy to my despair.
XXXIX
"Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps,
And groans that rage of racking famine spoke;
The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps,
The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke,
The shriek that from the distant battle broke;
The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host'
Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke  \
To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish tossed, >
Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!  //
XL
"Some mighty gulf of separation past,
I seemed transported to another world;




40


Guilt and Sorrow


A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast
The impatient mariner the sail unfurled,
And, whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was for ever hurled.
For me —farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.
XLI
And oft I thought (my fancy was so strong)
That I, at last, a resting-place had found;
'Here will I dwell,' said I, 'my whole life long,
Roaming the illimitable waters round;.Here will I live, -of all but heaven disowned,
/   And end my days upon the peaceful flood.'To break my dream the vessel reached its bound;
\  And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
XLII
"No help I sought; in sorrow turned adrift,  -
Was hopeless, as if cast on some bare rock;
Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift,
Nor raised my hand at any door to knock.
I lay where, with his drowsy mates, the cock
From the cross-timber of an out-house hung.:
Dismally tolled, that night, the city clock!
At morn my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,
Nor to the beggar's language could I fit my tongue.
XLIII"So passed a second day; and, when the third- -
Was come, I tried in vain the crowd's resort.
-In deep despair, by frightful wishes stirred,
Near the sea-side I reached a ruined fort;
There, pains which nature could no more support,.
With blindness linked, did on my vitals fall.;
And, after many interruptions short.
Of hideous.sense, I sank, nor step could crawl.::
Unsought for was the help that did my life recall..
XLIV.
"Borne to a hospital, I lay with brain
Drowsy and weak, and shattered memory;         -




Guilt and Sorrow


41


I heard my neighbours in their beds complain
Of many things which never troubled meOf feet still bustling round with busy glee,
Of looks where common kindness had no part,
Of service done with cold formality,
Fretting the fever round the languid heart,
And groans which, as they said, might make a dead man
start.
XLV
hThese things just served to stir the slumbering sense,
or pain nor pity in my bosom raised.
With strength did memory return; and, thence
Dismissed, again on open day I gazed,
At houses, men, and common light, amazed.
The lanes I sought, and, as the sun retired,
Came where beneath the trees a faggot blazed,
The travellers saw me weep, my fate inquired,
And gave me food-and rest, more welcome, more desired.
XLVI
"Rough potters seemed they, trading soberly
With panniered asses driven from door to door;
But life of happier sort set forth to me,
And other joys my fancy to allureThe bag-pipe dinning on the midnight moor
In barn uplighted; and companions boon,
Well met from far with revelry secure
Among the forest glades, while jocund June
Rolled fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.
XLVII
"But ill they suited me-those journeys dark
O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch!
To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark,
Or hang on tip-toe at the lifted latch.
The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,
The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill,
And ear still busy on its nightly watch,.,-Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill:
Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.
XLVIII
'" What could I do, unaided and unblest?
My father:! gone was every friend of thine:
C 2




42


Guilt and Sorrow


And kindred of dead husband are at best
Small help; and, after marriage such as mine,
With little kindness would to me incline.
Nor was I then for toil or service fit;
My deep-drawn sighs-no effort could confine;
In open air forgetful would I sit
Whole hours, with idle arms in moping sorrow knit.
XLIX
The roads I paced, I loitered through the fields;
Contentedly, yet sometimes self-accused.
Trusted my life to what chance bounty yields,
Now coldly given, now. utterly refused.
The ground I for my bed have often used:
But what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth,
Is that I have my inner self abused,
Foregone the home delight of constant truth,
And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.
L
"Through tears the rising sun I oft have viewed,
Through tears have seen him towards that world descend
Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude:
Three years a wanderer now my course I bend —
Oh! tell me whither-for no earthly friend
Have I."-She ceased, and weeping turned away;
As if because her tale was at an end,
She wept; because she had no more to say
Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay.
(III)
LI
True sympathy the Sailor's looks expressed,
His looks-for pondering he was mute the while.
Of social Order's care for wretchedness,
Of Time's sure help to calm and reconcile,Joy's second spring and Hope's long-treasured smile,
'Twas not for him to speak-a man so tried.
Yet, to relieve her heart, in friendly style
Proverbial words of confort he applied,
And not in vain, while, they went pacing side by side.




.Guilt and    Sorrow             43
LII
Ere long, from heaps of-turf, before their sight,
Together smoking in the sun's slant beam,
Rise various wreaths that into one unite
Which high and higher mounts with silver gleam:
Fair spectacle,-but instantly a scream
Thence bursting shrill did all remark prevent;
They paused, and heard a- hoarser voice blaspheme,
And female cries. Their course they thither bent,
And met a man who foamed with anger vehement.
LIII
A woman stood with quivering lips and pale,
And, pointing to a little child that lay
Stretched on the ground, began a piteous tale;
How in a simple freak of thoughtless play
He had provoked his father, who straightway,
As if each blow were deadlier than the last,  -
Struck the.poor innocent. Pallid with dismay
The Soldier's Widow heard and stood aghast;
\And stern looks on the man her grey-haired Comrade cast.
LIV
His voice with indignation rising high
Such further deed in manhood's name forbade;
The peasant, wild in passion, made reply,
With bitter insult and revilings sad;
Asked him in scorn what business there he had;
What kind of plunder he was hunting now;
The gallows would one day of him be glad;Though inward anguish damped the Sailor's brow,
Yet calm he seemed as thoughts so poignant would allow.
LV
Softly he stroked the child, who lay outstretched
With face to earth; and, as the boy turned round
His battered head, a groan the Sailor fetched
As if he saw-there and upon that groundStrange repetition of the deadly wound:
He had himself inflicted. Through his brain
At once the griding iron passage found;
Deluge of tender thoughts then rushed amain,
Nor-could his -sunken eyes the starting tear restrain.




44            Guilt and     Sorrow
LVI
AVithin himself he said-What hearts have we I
/The blessing this a father gives his child!
Yet happy thou, poor boy! compared with me,
\  Sufferi gnot doing ill-fate far more mild.
The stranger's loo-Eand tears of wrath beguiled
i The father, and relenting thoughts awoke;
He kissed his son-so all was reconciled.
Then, with a voice which inward trouble broke
Ere to his lips it came, the Sailor them bespoke.
LVII
"Bad is the world, and hard is the world's law
Even for the man who wears the warmest fleece;
Much need have ye that time more closely draw
The bond of nature, all unkindness cease,
And that among so few there still be peace:
Else can ye hope but with such numerous foes
Your pains shall ever with your years increase?"While from his heart the appropriate lesson flows,
A correspondent calm stole gently o'er his woes.
LVIII
Forthwith the pair passed on-; and down they look
Into a narrow valley's pleasant scene
Where wreaths of vapour tracked a winding brook,
That babbled on through groves and meadows green;
A low-roofed house peeped out the trees between;
The dripping groves resound with cheerful lays,
And melancholy lowings intervene
Of scattered herds, that in the meadow graze,
Some amid lingering shade, some touched by the sun's rays.
LIX
They saw and heard, and, winding with the road,:
Down a thick wood, they dropt into the vale;
Comfort, by prouder mansions unbestowedy
Their wearied frames, she hoped, would soon regale.
Erelong they reached that cottage in the dale:
It was a rustic inn; —the board was spread,
The milk-maid followed with her brimming pail,
And lustily the master carved the- bread,.Kindly the housewife pressed, and they in comfort fed.



Guilt and     Sorrow             45
LX
Their breakfast done, the pair, though loth, must part;
Wanderers whose course no longer now agrees.
She rose and bade farewell! and, while her heart
Struggled with tears nor could its sorrow ease,.
She left him there; for, clustering round his knees,
With his oak-staff the cottage children played;
And soon she reached a spot o'erhung with trees
And banks of ragged earth; beneath the shade
Across the pebbly road a little runnel strayed.
LXI
A cart and horse beside the rivulet stood;
Chequering the canvas roof the sunbeams shone.
She saw the carman bend to scoop the flood
As the wain fronted her,-wherein lay one,
A pale-faced Woman, in disease far gone.
The carman wet her lips as well behoved;
Bed under her lean body there was none,
Though even to die near one she most had loved
She could not of herself those wasted limbs have moved.
LXII
I The Soldier's Widow learned with honest pain
(And homefelt force of sympathy sincere,
Why thus that worn-out wretch must there sustain
The jolting road and morning air severe.
The wain pursued its way; and following near
In pure compassion she her steps retraced
Far as the cottage. "A sad sight is here,"She cried aloud; and forth ran out in haste
The friends whom she had left but a few minutes past.
LXIII
While to the door with eager speed they ran,
From her bare straw the Woman half upraised
Her bony visage-gaunt and deadly wan;
No pity asking, on the group she gazed
With a dim eye, dlstracted —and amazed;
Then sank upon her straw with feeble moan.
Fervently cried the housewife-" God be praised,
I have a house that I can call my own;
Nor shall she perish there, untended and alone!"




46


Guilt and Sorrow


LXIV
So in they bear her to the chimney seat,
And busily, though yet with fear, untie.
Her garments, and, to warm her icy feet
And chafe her temples, careful hands apply.Nature reviving, with a deep-drawn sigh
She strove, and not in vain, her head to rear;
Then said-" I thank you all; if I must die,
The God in heaven my prayers for you will hear;
Till now I did not think my end had been so near.
LXV
"Barred every comfort labour could procure,
Suffering what no endurance could assuage,
I was compelled to seek my father's door,
Though loth to be a burthen on his age.
But sickness stopped me in an early stage
Of my sad journey; and within the wain
They placed me-there to end life's pilgrimage,
Unless beneath your roof I may remain;
For I shall never see my father's door again..
LXVI
"My life, Heaven knows, hath long been burthensome;
But, if I have not meekly suffered, meek
May my end be! Soon will this voice be dumb:
Should child of mine e'er wander hither, speak
Of me, say that the worm is on my cheek.Torn from our hut, that stood beside the:sea
Near Portland lighthouse in a lonesome creek,
My husband served in sad captivity
On shipboard, bound till peace or death should set him free.
LXVII
"A sailor's wife I knew a widow's cares,
Yet two sweet little ones partook my bed;
Hope cheered my dreams, and to my daily prayers
Our heavenly Father granted each day's bread;
Till one was found by stroke of violence dead,
Whose body near our cottage chanced to lie;
A dire suspicion drove us from our shed;
In vain to find a friendly face we try,
Nor could we live together those poor boys and I;




Guilt and     Sorrow             47
LXVIII
"For evil tongues made oath how on' that day
My husband lurked about the neighbourhood;
Now he had fled, and whither none could say,
And he had done the deed in the dark wood —
Near his own home!-but he was mild and good;
Never on earth was gentler creature seen;
He'd not have robbed the raven of its food.
My husband's lovingkindness stood between
Me and all worldly harms and wrongs however keen"
LXIX
Alas! the thing she told with labouring breath
The Sailor knew too well. That wickedness
His hand had wrought; and when, in the hour of death,
He saw his Wife's lips move his name to bless
With her last words, unable to suppress
His anguish, with his heart he ceased to strive;
And, weeping loud in this extreme distress,
He cried-" Do pity me! That thou shouldst live
I neither ask nor wish-forgive me, but forgive I"
LXX
To tell the change that Voice within her wrought
Nature by sign or sound made no essay;
A sudden joy surprised expiring thought,
And every mortal pang dissolved away.
Borne gently to a bed,- in death she lay;
Yet still while over her the husband bent,
A look was in her face which seemed to say,
"Be blest; by sight of thee from heaven was sent
Peace to my parting soul, the fulness of content."
LXXI
She slept in peace,-his pulses throbbed and stopped,
Breathless he gazed upon her face,-then took
Her hand in his, and raised it, but both dropped,
When on his own he cast a rueful look.
His ears were never silent; sleep forsook
His burning eyelids stretched and stiff as lead;
All night from time to time under him shook
The floor as he lay shuddering on his bed;
And oft he groaned aloud, " O God, that I were dead!"




48            Guilt and    Sorrow
LXXII
The Soldier's Widow lingered in the cot,
And, when he rose, he thanked her pious care
Through which his Wife, to that kind shelter brought,
Died in his arms; and with those thanks a prayer
He breathed for her, and for that merciful pair.
The corse interred, not one hour he remained
Beneath their roof, but to the open air
A burthen, now with fortitude sustained,
He bore within a breast where dreadful quiet reigned.:
LX-III
Confirmed of purpose, fearlessly prepared
For act and suffering, to the city straight
He journeyed, and forthwith his crime declared:
"And from your doom," he added, "now I wait,
Nor let it linger long, the murderer's fate."
Not ineffectual was that piteous claim:
"   welcome sentence which will end though late,"
He said, -"the pangs that to my conscience came.
Out of that deed. My trust, Saviour I is in thy -name!"
LXXIV
His fate wai pitied. Him in iron case
(Reader, forgive the intolerable thought)-.
They hung not:-no one on his form or face.Could gaze, as on a show by idlers sought;
No kindred sufferer,, to his death-place brought..
By lawless curiosity-or chance,-.
When into storm the evening sky is wrought,
Upon his swinging corse an eye can glance,<.
And drop, as he once dropped, in miserable trance.
( 793-94)




Peter Bell                      49
PETER BELL
A TALE
What's in a Name?
Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Caesar!
PROLOGUE
THERE'S-something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;.
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.
And now I have a little Boat
In shape a very crescent-moon
Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
But if perchance your faith, should fail,
Look up-and you shall see me soon!
The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!
Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,..___.
To see how ye are all distrest,.
Till my ribs ached, I'd laugh at you!
Away we go, my Boat and IFrail tman ne'er sate in such another;
Whether among the winds we strive,
Or deep into the clouds we dive,
Each is contented with the other.
Written at Alfoxden., Founded upon an anecdote, which I read in
a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a
wretched posture.! Upon examination, a dead body was found in the
water and proved to be the body of its master. -The countenance, gait,
and figure of Peter, were taken from a wild rover with whom I walked
from Builth, on the river Wye, downwards nearly -as far as the town of
Hay. He told me strange stories.




e
50                 Peter Bell
Away we go-and what care we
For treasons, tumults, and for wars?
We are as calm in our delight
As is the crescent-moon so bright
Among the scattered stars.
Up goes my Boat among the stars
Through many a breathless field of light,
Through many a long blue field of ether,
Leaving ten thousand stars beneath her:
Up goes my little Boat so bright!
The Crab, the Scorpion, and the BullWe pry among them all; have shot
High o'er the red-haired race of Mars,
Covered from top to toe with scars;
Such company I like it not!
The towns in Saturn are decayed,
And melancholy Spectres throng them;The Pleiads, that appear to. kiss
Each other in the vast abyss,
With joy I sail among them.
Swift Mercury resounds with mirth,
Great Jove is full of stately bowers;
But these, and all that they contain,
What are they to that tiny grain,
That little Earth of ours?
Then back to Earth, the dear green Earth:
Whole ages if I here should roam,
The world for my remarks and me
Would not a whit the better be;
I've left my heart at home.
See! there she is, the matchless Earth!
There spreads the famed Pacific Ocean!
Old Andes thrusts yon craggy spear
Through the grey clouds; the Alps are here,
Like waters in commotion!
Yon tawny slip is Libya's sands;
That silver thread the river Dnieper!
And look, where clothed in brightest green'
Is a sweet Isle, of isles the Queen;
Ye fairies, from all evil keep her!




Peter Bell
And see the town where I wasborn!
Around those happy fields we span
In boyish gambols; —I was lost
Where I have been, but on this coast
I feel I am a man.
Never did fifty things at once
Appear so lovely, never, never;How tunefully the forests ring!
To hear the earth's soft murmuring
Thus could I hang for ever!
"Shame on you!" cried my little Boat,
"Was ever such a homesick Loon,
Within a living Boat to sit,
And make no better use of it;
A Boat twin-sister of the crescent-moon!
" Ne'er in the breast of full-grown Poet
Fluttered so faint a heart before;Was it the music of the spheres
That overpowered your mortal ears?
-Such din shall trouble them no more.
" These nether precincts do not lack
Charms of their own;-then come with me;
I want a comrade, and for you
There's nothing that I would not do;
Nought is there that you shall not see.
"Haste! and above Siberian snows
We'll sport amid the boranirning;:
Will mingle with her lustres gliding
Among the stars, the stars now hiding,
And now the stars adorning.
' I know the secrets of a land      i
Where human foot did never stray;
Fair is that land as evening skies,
And cool, though in the depth it lies
Of burning Africa.
i' Or we'll into the realm of Faery,
Among the lovely shades of things;,
The shadowy forms of mountains bare,
And streams, and bowers,- and ladies fair,
The shades of palaces and kings!


5i




52


Peter Bell
"Or, if you thirst with hardy zeal
Less quiet regions to explore,
Prompt voyage shall to you reveal
How earth and heaven are taught:to feel
The might of magic lore! "
" My little vagrant Form of light,
My gay and beautiful Canoe,
Well have you played your friendly part;
As kindly take what from my heart
Experience forces-then adieu!
"Temptation lurks among your words;
But, while these pleasures you're pursuing
Without impediment or let,
No wonder if you quite forget
What on the earth is doing.
"There was a time when all mankind
Did listen- wi-tha-faith sincereTo tuneful tongues in mystery versed;
Then Poets fearlessly rehearsed
The wonders of a wild career..
"Go-(but the world's a sleepy world,Arid 'tis, I fear, an age too late)  -
Take with you some ambitious Youth!
For, restless Wanderer'! I, in truth,
Am all unfit to be your mate.
"Long have I loved what I behold,
The fight that calms, the day that cheers;
The common growth of mother-earth
Suffices me-her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears.
"The dragon's wing, the magic ring,
I shall hot covet for my dower,
If I along that lowly way
With sympathetic heart may stray,
And with a soul of power. -
"These given, what more need I desiret '
To stir,? to soothe, or elevate.?
What:nobler marvels than the mind
May in life's daily. prospect find,
May find:or there create?  -




Peter Bell                   53
"A potent wand doth Sorrow wield;
What spell so strong as guilty Fear!
Repentance is a tender Sprite;
If aught on earth have heavenly might,
'Tis lodged within her silent tear.
"But grant my wishes,-let us now
Descend from this ethereal height;
Then take thy way, adventurous Skiff,
More daring far than Hippogriff,
And be thy own delight!
"To the stone-table in my garden,
Loved haunt of many a summer hour,
The Squire is come: his daughter Bess
Beside him in the cool recess
Sits blooming like a flower.
"With these are many more convened
They know not I have been so far;I see them there, in number nine,
Beneath the spreading Weymouth-pine!
I see them-there they are!
"There sits the Vicar and his. Dame;
And there my good friend, Stephen Otter;.
And, ere the light of evening fail,
To them I must relate the Tale
Of Peter Bell the Potter."
Off flew the Boat-away she flees,
Spurning her freight with indignation!
And I, as well as I was able,
On two poor legs, toward my stone-table
Limped on with sore vexation.
-' 0, here he is! " cried little Bess —
She saw me at the garden-door;
"We've waited anxiously and long,"
They cried, and all around me throng,
Full nine of them or more!
"Reproach me not-your fears be stillBe thankful we again have met;Resume, my Friends! within the shade
Your seats, and quickly shall be paid.
The well-remembered debt."




54


Peter Bell
I spake with faltering voice, like one
Not wholly rescued from the pale
Of a wild dream, or worse illusion;
But, straight, to cover my confusion,
Began the promised; Tale.
PART FIRST
ALL by the moonlight river side
Groaned the poor Beast ---alas! in vain;
The staff was raised to loftier height,
And the blows fell with heavier weight..
As Peter struck-and struck again.
"Hold!" cried the Squire, "against the rules
Of common sense you're surely sinning;
This leap is for us all too bold;
Who Peter was, let that be told,
And start from the beginning."
-   'A Potter,l Sir, he was by trade,"
Said I, becoming quite collected;
"And wheresoever he appeared,
/Full twenty times was Peter feared
For once that Peter was respected.
"He, two-and-thirty years or more,
Had been a wild and woodland rover:;._...
Had heard the Atlantic surges roar
On farthest Cornwall's rocky shore,
And trod the cliffs of Dover.
"And he had seen Caernarvon's towers,
And well he knew the spire of Sarum;
And he had been where Lincoln bell
Flings o'er the fen that ponderous knellA far-renowned alarum!
"At Dpncaster, at.York, and Leeds,
And merry Carlisle had he been;
And all along the Lowlands fair,
All through the bonny shire of Ayr
And far as Aberdeen.


1 In the dialect of the: North,- a- hawker of earthenware is thus
designated.."...              -.




Peter Bell
"And he had been at Inverness;
And Peter, by the mountain-rills,
Had danced his round with Highland lasses;
And he had lain beside his asses
On lofty Cheviot Hills:
"And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales,
Among the rocks and winding scars;
Where deep and low the hamlets lie
Beneath their little patch of sky
And little lot of stars:
"And all along the indented coast,
Bespattered with the salt-sea foam;
Where'er a knot of houses lay
On headland, or in hollow bay;Sure never man like him did roam!
" As well might Peter, in the Fleet,
Have been fast bound, a begging debtor;He travelled here, he travelled there;But not the value of a hair
Was heart or head the better.
' He roved among the vales and streams,
In the green wood and hollow dell;
They were his dwellings night and day,But nature ne'er could find the way
Into the heart of Peter Bell.
"In vain, through every changeful year,
Did Nature lead him as before;
A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
"Small change it made on Peter's heart
To see his gentle panniered train
With more than vernal pleasure feeding,
Where'er the tender grass was leading
Its earliest green along the lane.
" In vain, through water, earth, and air:
The soul of happy sound was spread,
When Peter on some April morn,
Beneath the broom or budding thornm,
Made the warm earth his lazy bed.


55




56


Peter Bell


"At noon, when, by the forest's edge
He lay beneath the branches high,
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky I
"On a fair prospect some have looked
And felt, as I have heard them say,
As if the moving time had been
A thing as steadfast as the scene
On which they gazed themselves away.
"Within the breast of Peter Bell
These silent raptures found no place;
He was a Carl as wild and rude
As ever hue-and-cry pursued,
As ever ran a felon's race.
" Of all that lead a lawless life,
Of all that love their lawless lives,
In city or in village small,
He was the wildest far of all;He had a dozen wedded wives.
"Nay, start not!-wedded wives-and twelve!
But how one wife could e'er come near him,
In simple truth I cannot tell;
For, be it said of Peter Bell,
To see him was to fear him... — " Though Nature could not touch his heart
By lovely forms, and silent weather,
And tender sounds, yet you might see
At once, that Peter Bell and she
Had often been together.
"A savage wildness round him hung
As of a dweller out of doors;
/In his whole figure and his mien
k A savage character was seen
\Of mountains and of dreary moors.
"To all the unshaped half-human thoughts
Which solitary Nature feeds
'Mid summer storms or winter's ice,
Had Peter joined whatever vice
The cruel city breeds.




Peter Bell                  57
"His face was keen as is the wind
That cuts along the hawthorn-fence;Of courage you saw little there,
But, in its stead, a medley air
Of cunning and of impudence.
"He had a dark and sidelong walk,
And long and slouching was his gait;
Beneath his looks so bare and bold,
You might perceive, his spirit cold
Was playing with some inward bait.
"His forehead wrinkled was and furred;
A work, one half of which was done
By thinking of his ' whens' and ' hows;'
And half, by knitting of his brows
Beneath the glaring sun.
"There was a hardness in his cheek,
There was a hardness in his eye,
As if the man had fixed his face,
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky!"
ONE NIGHT, (and now, my little Bess!
We've reached at last the promised Tale_:)
One beautiful November night,
When the full moon was shining bright
Upon the rapid river Swale,
Along the river's winding banks
Peter was travelling all alone;Whether to buy or sell, or led
By pleasure running in his head,
To me was never known.
He trudged along through copse and brake,
He trudged along o'er hill and dale;
Nor for the moon cared he a tittle,
And for the stars he cared as little,
And for the murmuring river Swale.
But, chancing to espy a path
That promised to'cut short the way
As many a wiser man hath done,
He left a trusty guide for one
That might his steps betray.




58


Peter: Bell
To a thick wood he soo6n is brought
Where cheerily his course he weaves,
And whistling loud may yet be heard,
Though often buried, like a bird
Darkling, among the boughs and leaves.
But quickly Peter's mood is changed,
And on he drives with cheeks that burn
In downright fury and in wrath;) There's little sign the treacherous path
Will to the road return!
The path grows dim, and dimmer still;
Now up, now down, the Rover wends,
With all the sail that he can carry,
Till brought to a deserted quarryAnd there the pathway ends.
He paused-for shadows of strange shape,
Massy and black, before him lay;
But through the dark, and through the cold,
And through the yawning fissures old,
Did Peter boldly press his way.
Right through the quarry;-and behold
A scene of soft and lovely hue!
Where blue and grey, and tender green,
Together-make as sweet a scene
As ever human eye did view.
Beneath the clear blue sky he saw
A little field of meadow ground;
But field or meadow name it not;
Call it of earth a small green plot,
With rocks encompassed round.
The Swale flowed under the grey rocks,
But he flowed quiet and unseen;You need a strong and stormy gale:
To bring the noises of the Swale
To that green spot, so calm and green -
And is there no one dwelling here,
No hermit with his beads and glass?
And does no little cottage look
Upon this soft and fertile nook?
Does no one live near this green grass?




Peter Bell                   59
Across the deep and quiet: spot
Is Peter driving through the grassAnd now has reached the skirting trees;
When, turning round his head, he sees
A solitary Ass.
"A Prize!- cries Peter-but he firstMust spy about him far and near:
There's not a single house in sight,
No woodman's hut, no cottage lightPeter, you. need not fear!
There's nothing to be seen but woods,
And rocks that spread a hoary gleam,
And this one Beast, that from the bed
Of the green meadow hangs his head
Over the silent stream.
His head is with a halter bound;
The halter seizing, Peter leapt
Upon the Creature's back, and plied
With ready heels his shaggy side;
But still the Ass his station kept.
Then Peter gave a sudden jerk,
A jerk that from a dungeon-floor
Would have pulled up an iron ring;
But still the heavy-headed Thing
Stood just as he had stood before 1
Quoth Peter, leaping from his seat,
"There is some plot against me laid;"
Once more the little meadow-ground
And alPlthe hoary cliffs around
He cautiously surveyed.
All, all is silent-rocks and woods,
All still and silent-far and near!
Only the Ass, with motion dull,
'Upon the pivot of his skull
Turns round his long left ear.
Thought Peter, What can mean all:this?
Some ugly witchcraft must be here!
-Once more the Ass, with motion dull,
Upon the pivot of his skull
Turned round his long left ear.




6o


Peter Bell
Suspicion ripened into dread;
Yet with deliberate action slow,
His staff high-raising, in the pride
Of skill, upon the sounding hide,
He dealt a sturdy blow.
The poor Ass staggered with the shock;
And then, as if to take his ease,
In quiet uncomplaining mood,
Upon the spot where he had stood,
Dropped gently down upon his knees:
As gently on his side he fell;
And by the river's brink did lie;
And, while he lay like one that mourned,
The patient Beast on Peter turned
His shining hazel eye.
'Twas but one mild, reproachful look,
A look more tender than severe;
And straight in sorrow, not in dread,
He turned the eye-ball in his head
Towards the smooth river deep and clear.
Upon the Beast the sapling rings;
His lank sides heaved, his limbs they stirred;
He gave a groan, and then another,
Of that which went before thebrother,
And then he gave a third.
All by the moonlight river side
He gave three miserable groans;
And not till now hath Peter seen
How gaunt the Creature is,-how lean
And sharp his staring bones!
With legs stretched out and stiff he lay:No word of kind commiseration
Fell at the sight from Peter's tongue;
With hard contempt his heart was wrung,
With hatred and vexation.
The meagre beast lay still as death;
And Peter's lips with fury quiver;
Quoth he, (' You little mulish dog,
I'll fling your carcase like a log
Head-foremost down the river " '




Peter Bell
An impious oath confirmed the threatWhereat from the earth on which he lay
To all the echoes, south and north,
And east and west, the Ass sent forth
A long and clamorous bray!
This outcry, on the heart of Peter,
Seems like a note of joy to strike,Joy at the heart of Peter knocks;
But in the echo of the rocks
Was something Peter did not like.
Whether to cheer his coward breast,
Or that he could not break the chain,
In this serene and solemn hour,
Twined round him by demoniac power,
To the blind work he turned again.
Among the rocks and winding crags;
Among the mountains far away;
Once more the Ass did lengthen out
More ruefully a deep-drawn shout,
The hard dry see-saw of his horrible bray!
What is there now in Peter's heart!
Or whence the might of this strange sound?
The moon uneasy looked and dimmer,
The broad blue heavens appeared to glimmer,
And the rocks staggered all aroundFrom Peter's hand the sapling dropped!
Threat has he none to execute;
"If any one should come and see
That I am here, they'll think," quoth he,
"I'm helping this poor dying brute.'
He scans the Ass from limb to limb,
And ventures now to uplift his eyes;
More steady looks the moon, and clear,
More like themselves the rocks appear
And touch more quiet skies.
His scorn returns-his hate revives;
He stoops the Ass's neck to seize
With malice-that again takes flight;
For in the pool a startling sight
Meets him, among the inverted trees.


6i




62


Peter Bell
Is it the moon's distorted face?,.The ghost-like image of a cloud?
Is it a gallows there portrayed?
Is Peter of himself afraid?
J Is it a coffin,-or a shroud?
A grisly idol hewn in stone?
Or imp from witch's lap let fall?
Perhaps a ring of shining fairies?.
Such as pursue their feared vagaries
In sylvan bower, or haunted hall?
Is it a fiend that to a stake
Of fire his desperate self is tethering?
Or stubborn spirit doomed to yell
In solitary ward or cell,
Ten thousand miles from all his brethren?
Never did pulse so quickly throb,
And never heart so loudly panted;
He looks, he cannot choose but look;
Like some one reading in a bookA book that is enchanted.
Ah, well-a-day for Peter Bell!
He will be turned to iron soon,
Meet Statue for the court of Fear!
His hat is up-and every hair
Bristles, and whitens in the moon!
He looks, he ponders, looks again;
He sees a motion-hears a groan;
His eyes-will burst-his heart will breakHe gives a loud and frightful shriek,
And back he falls, as if his life were flown!
PART SECOND
WE left our Hero in a trance,
Beneath the alders, near the river;;
The Ass is by the river-side,'
And, where the feeble breezes glide,
Upon the stream the moonbeams quiver.
A happy respite! but at length-:.
He feels-the glimmering of the moon;
Wakes with glazed eye, rand feebly sighingTo sink, perhaps,.wherehe- is lying,  1
Into -a scond-woo6nj:. -,i




Peter Bell                    63
He lifts his head, he sees his staff;
He touches-'tis to him a treasure I
Faint recollection seems to tell
That he is yet where mortals dwellA thought received with languid pleasure!
His head upon his elbow propped,
Becoming less and' less perplexed,
Sky-ward he look —to.rock and woodAnd then- upon the glassy flood
His wandering eye is fixe...
Thought. he, that is the face of one
In his last sleep securely bound!
So toward the stream his head he bent,And downward thrust his staff, intent
The river's depth to sound........
JVow-like.a temp'est-shattered bark,.
That overwhelmed and prostrate lies,
And in a moment to the verge:
Is lifted of a foaming -surgeFull suddenly the: Ass -doth rise!  '
His staring bones all shake with joy,.
And close by Peter's side he stands:
While Peter o'er the river bends,
The little Ass his neck extends,
And fondly licks his hands.
Such life is in the Ass's eyes,
Such life is- in his limbs and ears;
That Peter Bell, if he had been
The veriest coward ever-seen,
Must now have thrown aside his fears.
The Ass looks on —and to his work
Is Peter quietly resigned;
He touches here-,he touches thereAnd now. among the dead man's hair
His sapling Peter haS entwined..
He pulls —and looks-,and pulls again;
And he whom the poor Ass had.lost,'
The man who had been fouri days dead,
Head-for.emo.Qst from the river's.bed
Uprises like a. ghost:.........:.  -




64


Peter Bell
And Peter draws him to dry land;
And through the brain of Peter pass
Some poignant twitches, fast and faster;
"No doubt," quoth he, "he is the Master
Of this poor miserable Ass! "
The meagre Shadow that looks onWhat would he now? what is he doing?
His sudden fit of joy is flown,He on his knees hath laid him down,
As if he were his grief renewing;
But no-that Peter on his back
Must mount, he shows well as he can:Thought Peter then, come weal or woe,
I'll do what he would have me do,
In pity to this poor drowned man.
With that resolve he boldly mounts
Upon the pleased and thankful Ass;
And then, without a moment's stay,
That earnest Creature turned away,
Leaving the body on the grass.
Intent upon his faithful watch,
The Beast four days and nights had past;
A sweeter meadow ne'er was seen,
And there the Ass four days had been,
Nor ever once did break his fast:
Yet firm his step, and stout his heart;
The mead is crossed-the quarry's mouth
Is reached; but there the trusty guide
Into a thicket turns aside,
And deftly ambles towards the south.
When hark a burst of doleful sound!
And Peter honestly might say,
The like came never to his ears,
Though he has been, full thirty years,
A rover-night and day!
'Tis not a plover of the moors,
'Tis not a bittern of the fen;
Nor can it be a barking fox,
Nor night-bird chambered in the rocks,
Nor wild-cat in a woody glen!




Peter Bell


65


The Ass is startled —and stops short
Right in the middle of the thicket;
And Peter, wont to whistle loud
Whether alone or in a crowd,
Is silent as a silent cricket.
What ails you now, my little Bess?
Well may you tremble and look grave!
This cry-that rings along the wood,
This cry-that floats adown the flood,
Comes from the entrance of a cave:
I see a blooming Wood-boy there,'
And if I had the power to say
How sorrowful the wanderer is,
Your heart would be as sad as his
Till you had kissed his tears away.!
Grasping a hawthorn branch in' hand,
All bright with berries ripe and red,
Into the cavern's mouth he peeps;
Thence back into the moonlight creeps;
Whom seeks he —whom?-the silent deadHis father!-Him doth he requireHim hath he sought with fruitless pains,
Among the rocks, behind the trees;
Now creeping on his hands and knees,
Now running o'er the open plains.
And hither is he come at last,
When he through such a day has gone,
By this dark cave to be distrest
Like a poor bird-her plundered nest
Hovering around with dolorous' moan!
Of that intense and piercing cry."
The listening Ass conjectures well;
Wild.as it is, he there can read
Some intermingled notes that plead
With touches irresistible.;
But Peter- when he saw the Ass'
-Not only stop but turn, and change
The cherished tenor of his pace
That lamentable cry to chaseIt wrought in him conviction strange;.'
D




66                 Peter- Bell
A faith that, for the dead man's sake
And this poor slave who loved him well,
Vengeance upon his head will fall,
Some visitation worse than all
Which ever till this night befell.
Meanwhile-the Ass to reach his home,
Is striving stoutly as he may;
But, while he- climbs the woody hill,
The cry grows weak-and weaker still;
And now at last it dies away.
So with his freight the Creature turns
Into a gloomy grove of beech,
Along the shade with footsteps true.
Descending slowly, till the twoThe open moonlight reach.
And there, along the narrow dell,
A fair smooth pathway you discern,
A length of green and open roadAs if.it from a fountain flowedWinding away between the fern.
The rocks that tower on either side
Build, up a wild fantastic scene;
Temples like those among the Hindoos,
And mosques, and spires, and abbey windows,
And castles all with ivy green!
And, while the Ass pursues his.way,
Along this solitary dell,
As pensively his steps advance,.
The mosques and spires change countenance
And look at Peter Bell i
That unintelligible cry
Hath left him high in preparation,Convinced that he, or soon or late,
This very night will meet his fate ---
And so he sits in expectation!.
The strenuous Animal hath clomb,.
With the green path; and now he.- wends
Where, shining like the smoothest.sea,r
In undisturbed immensity......
A level plain-extends...




Peter Bell
But whence this faintly-rustling sound
By which the journeying pair are chased?
-A withered leaf is close behind,
Light plaything for the sportive wind
Upon that solitary waste.
When Peter spied the moving thing,
It only doubled his distress;
A4" Where there is not a bush or tree,
/f The very leaves they follow meSo huge hath been my wickedness!)"
To a close lane they now are come,
Where, as before, the enduring Ass
Moves on without a moment's stop,
Nor once turns round his head to'crop
A bramble-leaf or blade of grass.
Between the hedges as they go,
The white dust sleeps upon the lane;
And Peter, ever and anon
Back-looking, sees, upon a stone,
Or in the dust, a crimson stain.
A stain-as of a drop of blood
By moonlight made more faint and wan;
Ha! why these sinkings of despair?
He knows not how the blood comes thereAnd Peter is a wicked man.
At length he spies a bleeding wound,
Where he had struck the Ass's head;
He sees the blood, knows what it is,A glimpse of sudden joy was his,
But then it quickly fled;
Of him whom sudden death had seized
He thought,-of thee, O faithful Ass!
And once again those ghastly pains
Shoot to and fro through heart and reins,
And through his brain like lightning pass.
PART THIRD
I'VE heard of one, a gentle Soul,
Though given to sadness and -to gloom,
And for the fact will vouch,-one night
It chanced that by a taper's light
This man was reading in his room;


67




68                 Peter Bell
Bending, as you or I might bend -
At night o'er any pious book,;
When sudden blackness overspread
The snow-white page on which he read,
And made the good man round him look.,
The chamber walls were dark all round,-.
And to his book he turned again;
-The light had left the lonely taper,
And formed itself upon the paper
Into large letters-bright and plain!
The godly book was in his handAnd, on the page, more black than coal,
Appeared set forth in strange array,
A word-which to his dying day
Perplexed the good man's gentle soul.
The ghostly word, thus plainly seen,
Did never from his lips depart;
But he hath said, poor gentle wight!
It brought full many a sin to light
Out of the bottom of his heart.
Dread Spirits! to confound the meek
Why wander from your course so far,
Disordering colour, form, and stature!
\/ —Let good men feel the soul of nature,..    /.7\And see things as they are.
Yet, potent Spirits.! well I know,
How-ye, that play with soul and sense,
Are not unused to trouble friends
Of goodness, for most.gracious ends —
And this I speak in- reverence!
But might I give advice to you,
Whom in my fear I love so well;
From men of pensive virtue go,
Dread Beings! and your empire show'
On hearts like that of Peter Bell.
Your presence often have I felt
In darkness and the stormy night;,
And, with like force, if need there be,
Ye can put forth your agency
When earth is.calm, and heaven is bright,.




Peter Bell                   69
Then, coming from the wayward world,
That powerful world in which ye dwell,
Come, Spirits of the Mind!and try
To-night, beneath the moonlight sky
What may be done with Peter Bell!
-O, would that some more skilful voice
My further labour might prevent!
Kind Listeners, that around me sit,
I feel that I am all unfit
For such high argument.
I've played, I've danced, with my narration;
I loitered long ere I began:
Ye waited then on my good pleasure';
Pour out indulgence still, in measure
As liberal as ye can!
Our Travellers, ye remember well,
Are thridding a sequestered lane;
And Peter many tricks is trying,
And many anodynes applying,
To ease his conscience of its pain..  '- -
By this his heart is lighter far'
And, finding that he can account
So snugly for that crimson stain,
His evil spirit up again
Does like an empty bucket mount.
And Peter is a deep logician
Who hath no lack of wit mercurial;
"Blood drops-leaves rustle-yet," quoth he,
/"( This poor man never, but for me,
/ Could have had Christian burial.
"And, say the best you can, 'tis plain,
That here has been some wicked dealing;
/No doubt the devil in me wrought;
I'm not the man who could have thought
An Ass like this was worth the stealing I"
So from his pocket Peter takesHis shining horn tobacco-box;
And, in a light and careless way,
As men who with their purpose play,
Tpon the lid e knocksl




70


Peter Bell
Let them whose voice can stop the clouds,
Whose cunning eye can see the wind,
Tell to a curious world the cause
Why, making here a sudden pause,
The Ass turned round his head, and grinned.
Appalling process! I have marked
The like on heath, in lonely wood;
And, verily, have seldom met
A spectacle more hideous-yet
It suited Peter's present wiood.
And, grinning in his turn, his teeth
IHe in jocose defiance showedWhen, to upset his spiteful mirth,
A murmur, pent within the earth,
In the dead earth beneath the road
Rolled audibly! it swept along,
A muffled noise-a rumbling sound!'Twas by a troop of miners made,
Plying with gunpowder their trade,
Some twenty fathoms under ground.
Small cause of dire effect! for, surely,
If ever mortal, King or Cotter,
Believed that earth was charged to quake
And yawn for his unworthy sake,. was Peter Bell the Potter.
But, as an oak in breathless air
Will stand though to the centre hewn;
Or as the weakest things, if frost
Have stiffened them, maintain their post;
So he, beneath the gazing moon!The Beast bestriding thus, he reached
A spot where, in a sheltering cove,
A little chapel stands alone,
With greenest ivy overgrown,
And tufted with an ivy grove;
Dying insensibly away
From human thoughts and purposes,
It seemed-wall, window, roof and tower
To bow to some transforming power,
And blend with the surrounding trees,



Peter Bell                   71
As ruinous a place it was,
Thought Peter, in the shire of Fife
That served my turn, when following still
From land to land a reckless will
I married my sixth wife!
The unheeding Ass moved slowly on,
And now is passing by an: inn
Brim-full of a carousing crew,
That make, with curses not a few,
An uproar and a drunken din.
I cannot well express the thoughts
Which Peter in those noises found;A stifling power compressed his frame,
While-as a swimming darkness came
Over that dull and dreary sound.
For well did Peter know the sound;
The language of those drunken joys
To him, a jovial soul, I ween,
But a few hours ago, had been
A gladsome and a welcome noise.
Now, turned adrift into the past,....
He finds no solace in his course;
Like planet-stricken men of yore,
He trembles, smitten to the core
By strong compunction and remorse.
But, more than all, his heart is stung
To think of one, almost a child;
A sweet and playful Highland girl,
As light and beauteous as a squirrel,
As beauteous and as wild!
Her dwelling was a lonely house,
A cottage in a heathy dell;
And she put on her gown of green,
And left her mother at sixteen,
And followed Peter Bell.
But many good and pious thoughts
Had she; and, in the kirk to pray,
Two long Scotch miles, through rain or snow
To kirk she had been used to go,
Twice every-Sabbath-day.




-72


Peter Bell
And, when she followed Peter Bell,
It was to lead an honest life;:
For he, with tongue not used to falter, —
Had pledged his troth before the altar
To love her as his wedded wife.
A mother's hope is hers;-but soon
She drooped and pined like one forlorn";
From Scripture she a name did borrow;.
Benoni, or the child of sorrow,
She called her babe unborn.:
For she had learned how Peter lived,
And took it in most grievous part;
She to the very bone was worn,
And, ere that little child was born,
Died of a broken heart.
And now the Spirits of the Mind
Are busy with poor Peter Bell;
Upon the rights of visual sense
Usurping, with a prevalence  -
More terrible than magic spell.
Close by a brake of flowering furze
(Above it shivering aspens play)
He sees an unsubstantial creature,
His very self in form and feature, -
Not four yards from the broad highway:
And stretched beneath the furze he sees
The Highland girl-it is no other;
And hears her crying as she cried,The very moment that she died,
"My mother! oh my mother!"
The sweat pours down from Peter's face,
So grievous is his heart's contrition;
With agony his eye-balls ache
While he beholds by the furze-brake
-This miserable vision!
al. is the well-deserving brute,:
His peace hath no offence betrayed;
But now, while down that slope he wends
A voice to Peter's ear ascends,
-R-esoinding from the woody glade:



Peter Bell                   73
The voice, though clamorous as a horn
Re-echoed by a naked rock,
Comes from that tabernacle-List!
Within, ai fervent Methodist
Is preacchng to —no heedrtss flock!
"Repent! repent!" he cries aloud,
"While yet ye may find mercy;-strive -
To love the Lord with all your might;
Turn to him, seek him day and night,
And save your souls alive!
"Repent! repent! though ye have gone,
Through paths- of wickedness and woe,
After the Babylonian harlot;
And, though your sins be red as scarlet,
They shall be white as snow!"
Even as he passed the door, these words
Did plainly come to Peter's ears;
/And they such joyful tidings were,
/ The joy was more than he could bear!/  He melted into tears.
Sweet tears of hope and tenderness!
And fast they fell, a plenteous shower i
His nerves, his sinews seemed to melt;
Through all his iron frame was felt
A gentle, a relaxing, power!
Each fibre of his frame was weak;
Weak all the animal within;But, in its helplessness, grew mild
And gentle as an infant child,
An infant that has known no sin.
'Tis said, meek Beast! that, through Heaven's grace,
He not unmoved did notice now
The cross upon thy shoulder scored,
For lasting impress, by the Lord
To whom all human-kind shall bow;
Memorial of his touch-that day
When Jesus humbly deigned to ride,
Entering the proud Jerusalem,
By an immeasurable stream
Of shouting people deified!
D 2




74                 Peter Bell'
Meanwhile the persevering Ass
Turned towards a gate that hung in view
Across a shady lane; his chest
Against the yielding gate he pressed
And quietly passed through.
And up the stony lane he'goes;
No ghost more softy ever trod;
Among-the stones and pebbles, he
Sets down his:hoofs inaudibly,
As if with felt his hoofs were shod.
Along the lane the trusty Ass
Went twice two hundred yards or more,
And no one could have guessed his aim,Till to a lonely house he came,
And stopped beside the door.
Thought Peter,:'tis the poor man's home!
He listens-not a sound is heard
Save from the trickling household rill;
But, stepping o'er the cottage-sill,
Forthwith a little Girl appeared.
She to the Meeting-house was bound
In hopes some tidings there to gather:
No glimpse it. is, no doubtful gleam;
She saw-and uttered with a scream,
"My father! here's my father!"
The very word was plainly heard,
Heard plainly by the wretched MotherHer joy was like a deep affright:
And forth she rushed into the light,
And saw it was another!
And, instantly, upon the earth,
Beneath the full moon shining bright, -
Close to the Ass's feet she fell;
At the same moment Peter Bell
Dismounts in most urnhappy plight.
As he beheld the Woman lie
Breathless and. motionless, the mind
Of Peter sadly was confused;
But, though to such demands unused,
And helpless almost as the blind,:.




Peter Bell                   75
He raised her up; and, while he held
Her body propped against his knee,
The Woman waked-and when she spied
The poor Ass standing by her side,
She moaned most bitterly.
"Oh! God be praised-my heart's at easeFor he is dead-I know it well!"
-At this she wept a bifter flood;
And, in the best way that he-could,
His tale did Peter tell.
He trembles-he is pale as death;
His voice is weak with perturbation;
He turns aside his head, he pauses;
/Poor Peter, from a thousand causes,
N Is crippled sore in his narration.
At length she learned how he espied
The Ass in that small meadow-ground;
And that her Husband now lay dead,
Beside that luckless river's bed
In which he had been drowned.
A piercing look the Widow cast
Upon the Beast that near her stands;
She sees 'tis he, that 'tis the same;
She calls the poor Ass by his name,
And wrings, and wrings her hands.
"0 wretched loss-untimely stroke!
If he had died upon his bed!
He knew not one forewarning pain;
He never will come home againIs dead, for ever dead!"
/ Beside the woman Peter stands;
' His heart is opening more and more;
A holy sense pervades his mind;
He feels what he for human kind
i Had never felt before.
At length, by Peter's arm sustained,
The Woman rises from the ground"Oh, mercy! something must be done,
My little Rachel, you must run,Some willing neighbour must be found.




76


Peter. Bell
"Make haste-my little Rachel-do,
The first you meet witih-bid him come,
Ask him to lend his horse to-night,
And this good Man, whom Heaven requite,
Will help to bring the body home."
Away goes. Rachel weeping loud;An Infant, waked by her distress,
Makes in.the house a piteous cry;
And Peter hears the Mother sigh,
"Seven are they, and all fatherless!.' '
/And now is Peter taught to feel
' That man's heart is a holy thing;
\  And Nature, through a world of death,
\ Breathes into him a second breath,, More searching than the breath of spring.
Upon a stone the Woman sits
In agony of silent griefFrom his own thoughts did Peter start;
He longs to press her to his heart,
From love that cannot find relief.
But roused, as if through every limb
Had past a sudden 'shock of dread,
The Mother o'er the threshold flies,
And up the cottage stairs she hies,
And on the pillow lays her burning head.
And Peter turns his steps aside
Into a shade of darksome trees,
Where he sits down, he knows not how,
With his hands pressed against his brow,
His elbows on his tremulous knees.
There, self-involved, does Peter sit
Until no sign of life he makes,'
As if his mind were sinking deep
'Through years that have been long asleep';
\The trance is passed away —he wakes;
He lifts his head-and sees. the Ass
yet standing in the clear moonshine;
'."When shall I be as good as thou?
\Oh! would, poor beast, that I had now
iA heart but half as good as thine "




Peter Bell
But He-who deviously hath sought
His Father through the lonesome woods,
Hath sought, proclaiming to the ear
Of night his grief and sorrowful fearHe comes, escaped from fields and floods;With weary pace is drawing nigh;
He sees the Ass-and nothing;living
Had ever such a fit of joy
As hath this little orphan Boy,
For he has no misgiving!
Forth.to the gentle Ass he springs,
And up about his neck he climbs;
In loving words he talks to him,
He kisses, kisses face and limb,He kisses him a thousand times!
This Peter sees, while in the shade
He stood beside the cottage-door;
And Peter Bell, the ruffian wild,
Sobs loud, he sobs even like a child,
0 God! I can endure no more!" -7'
-Here ends my Tale: for in a trice
Arrived a neighbour with his horse;
Peter went forth with him straightway;
And, with due care, ere break of day,
Together they brought back the Corse.
And many years did this poor Ass,
Whom once it was my luck to see
Cropping the shrubs of Leming-Lane,
Help by his labour to maintain
The Widow and her family.
And Peter Bell, who, till that night, -
Had been the wildest of his clan,
Forsook his crimes, renounced his folly,
And, after ten months' melancholy,
Became a good and honest man.
(1798)


77




78


The Idiot Boy


THE IDIOT BOY 1
'TIs eight o'clock,-a clear March night,>
The moon is up,- the sky is blue,
The owlet, in the moonlight air,
Shouts from nobody knows where;
He lengthens out his lonely shout,
Halloo! halloo! a long halloo!
-Why bustle thus about your door,'What means this bustle, Betty Foy?
Why are you in this migh;-. fret?
And why on horseback have you set
Him whom you love, your Idiot Boy?
Scarcely a soul is out of bed;
Good Betty, put him down again;
His lips with joy they burr at you;
But, Betty! what has he to do
With stirrup, saddle, or with rein?
But Betty's bent on her intent;
For her good neighbour, Susan Gale,
Old Susan, she who dwells alone,
Is sick, and makes a piteous moan
As if her very life would fail.
There's not a house within a mile,
No hand to help them in distress;
Old Susan lies a-bed in pain,
And sorely puzzled are the twain,
For what she ails they cannot guess.
And Betty's husband's at the wood,
Where by the week he doth abide,
A woodman in the distant vale;
There's none to help poor Susan Gale;
What must be done? what will betide-?
1 The last stanza-" The Cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo, And
the sun did shine so cold"-was the foundation of the whole. The
words were reported to me by my dear friend, -Thomas Poole; but I
have since heard the same repeated of other Idiots. Let me add that
this long poem was composed in the groves of Alfoxden, almost extempore; not a word, I believe, being corrected, though one stanza
was omitted. I mention this in gratitude to those happy moments,
for, in truth, I never wrote anything with so much glee.




The Idiot Boy                  79
And Betty from the lane has fetched
Her Pony, that is mild and good;
Whether he be in joy or pain,
Feeding at will along the lane,.
Or bringing faggots from the wood.
Li  /   /        c    /
And he is all in travelling trim,Afil, 1y the moonlight, Betty Foy      "
His on the well-girt saddle set
(The like was never heard of yet)
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy.
And he must post without delay
Across the bridge and through the dale,
And by the church, and o'er the down,
To bring a Doctor from the town,
Or she will die, old Susan Gale.
There is no need of boot or spur,
There is no need of whip or wand;
For Johnny has his holly-bough,
And with a hurly-burly now
He shakes the green bough in his hand.
And Betty o'er and o'er has told
The Boy, who is her best delight,
Both what to follow, what to shun,
What do, and what to leave undone,
How turn to left, and how to right.
And Betty's most especial charge,
Was, "Johnny! Johnny! mind that you
Come home again, nor stop at all,Come home again, whate'er befall,
My Johnny, do, I pray you do."
To this did Johnny answer make,
Both with his head and with his hand,
And proudly shook the bridle too;
And then! his words were not a few,
Which Betty well could understand.
And now that Johnny is just going,
Though Betty's in a mighty flurry,-'
She gently pats the Pony's side,
On which her Idiot Boy must ride,
And seems no longer in a hurry. -




8o


The Idiot Boy
But when the Pony moved his legs, |
Oh! then for the poor Idiot Boy l I
\For joy he cannot hold the bridle, \
For joy his head and heels are idle,
He's idle all for very joy.
And while the Pony moves his legs,
In Johnny's left hand you may see
The green bough motionless and dead:
The Moon that shines above his head
Is not more still and mute than he.
x His heart it was so full of glee,
That till full fifty yards were gone,
He quite forgot his holly whip,
N And all his skill in horsemanship:Oh! happy, happy, happy John.
And while the Mother, at the door,
Stands fixed, her face with joy o'erflows,'
Proud of herself, and proud of him,
She sees him in his travelling trim,
How quietly her Johnny goes..'
The silence of her Idiot Boy,
What hopes it sends to Betty's heart-!
He's at the guide-post-he turns right;
She watches till he's out of sight,
And Betty will not then depart.
Burr, burr-now Johnny's lips they burr,
v As loud as any mill, or near it;
Meek as a lamb the Pony moves,
And Johnny makes the noise he loves,
And Betty listens, glad to hear it.
Away she hies to Susan Gale
Her Messenger's in merry tune;
The owlets hoot, the owlets curr,
And Johnny's lips they burr, burr, burr,
As on he goes beneath the moon.
-H-is steed and he right well agree;
For of this Pony there's a rumour,
That, should he lose his eyes and ears,
And should he live a thousand years,
He never will be out of humour.




The Idiot Boy
But- then he is a horse that thinks!
And when he thinks, his pace is slack;.
Now, though he knows poor Johnny well,
Yet, for his life, he cannot tell
What he has got upon his back.
So through the moonlight lanes they go,
And far into the moonlight dale,
And by the church, and o'er the down,
To bring a Doctor from the town,
To comfort poor old Susan Gale., And Betty, now at Susan's side,
Is in the middle of her story,
What speedy help her Boy will bring,
With many a most diverting thing,
Of Johnny's wit, and Johnny's glory.
And Betty, still at Susan's side,
By this time is not quite so flurried:
Demure with porringer and plate
She sits, as if in Susan's fate
Her life and soul were buried.
But Betty, poor good woman! she,
You plainly in her face may read it,:
Could lend out of that moment's store
Five years of happiness or more
To any that might need it.
But yet I guess that now and then
With Betty all was not so well-;
And to the road she turns her ears,
And thence full many a sound she hears,
Which she to Susan will not tell.
Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans;
'iAs s'ure as there's a moon in heaven,"
Cries Betty, "he'll be back again;
They'll:both be here-'tis almost tenBoth will be here before eleven."
Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans;
The clock gives warning for eleven;
'Tis on'the stroke -" He must be near,"
Quoth Betty, "and will soon be here,
As sure as there's a moon in heaven."


8i




82
02


The Idiot Boy
The clock is on the stroke:of twelve,
And Johnny is not yet in sight:
— The Moon's in heaven, as Betty sees,
But Betty is not quite at ease;.
And Susan has a dreadful night.
And Betty, half an hour ago,
On Johnny vile reflections cast:
"A little idle sauntering Thing!" )
With other names, an endless string;
But now that time is gone and.past.
And Betty's drooping at the heart,
That happy time all past and gone,
"How can it be he is so late?
The Doctor, he has made him wait;
Susan! they'll both be here anon."
And -Susan's growing worse and worse,
And Betty's in a sad quandary,;
And then there's nobody to say
If she must go, or she must stay!:
-She's in; a sad quandary.
The clock is on the stroke of one;
But neither Doctor nor his Guide
Appears along the moonlight road;
There's neither horse nor man abroad,
And Betty's still at Susan's side.
" And Susan now begins to fear
Of sad mischances not a few,.
That Johnny may perhaps be drowned;
Or lost, perhaps, and never found;
Which they must both for ever rue.
She prefaced half a hint of this
With, "God forbid it should be true!"'
At the first word that Susan said
Cried Betty, rising from the bed,
"Susan, I'd gladly stay with you.
"I must -be gone, I must away:
Consider, Johnny's but half-wise
Susan, we must take care of him
If he is hurt in life or limb""Oh God forbid!" poor Susan cries.




The Idiot Boy                  83
" What can I do?" says Betty, going,
"What can I do to ease your pain?
Good Susan, tell me, and I'll stay;,
I fear you're in a dreadful way,
I But I shall soon be back again."
"Nay, Betty, go! good Betty, go!
There's nothing that can ease my pain.'"
Then off she hies; but with a prayer
That God poor Susan's life would spare,
Till she comes back again.
So, through the moonlight lane she goes
And far into the moonlight dale:.;
And Cow she ran, and how she walked,
And all that to herself she talked,
Would surely be a tedious tale,;
In high and low, above, below,
In great and small, in round and square,
In tree and tower was Johnny seen,
In bush-and brake, in black and green;
'Twas Johnny, Johnny, every where,
And while she crossed the bridge, there came
A thought with which her heart is sore —
Johnny perhaps his horse forsook,
To hunt the moon within the brook,
And never will be heard of more.
Now is she high upon the down,
Alone amid a prospect wide;
There's neither Johnny nor his Horse
Among the fern or in the gorse;
There's neither Doctor nor his Guide.
"0 saints! what is become of him?
Perhaps he's climbed into an. oak,
Where he will stay till he is dead;
Or, sadly he has been misled,
And joined the wandering gipsy-folk.
"Or him that wicked Pony's carried
To the dark cave, the goblin's hall;
Or in the castle he's pursuing
Among the ghosts his own undoing;
Or playing with the waterfall."




84              The    Idiot Boy
At poor old Susan then she railed,
While to the town she posts away;
" If Susan had not been so ill,
Alas-! I should have had him still,
My Johnny, till my dying day."
Poor Betty, in this sad distemper,
The Doctor's self could hardly spare:
Unworthy things she talked, and wild;
Even he, of cattle the most mild,
The Pony had his share.;But now she's fairly in the town,
And to the Doctor's door she hies;
'Tis silence all on every side;
The town so long, the town so wide,
Is silent as the skies.
And now she's:at the Doctor's door,
She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap;
The Doctor at the casement shows
His glimmering eyes that peep and doze!,And one hand rubs his old night-cap.
'"0 Doctor! Doctor! where's my Johnny?"
"I'm here, what is't you want with me?"
"0 Sir! you know I'm Betty Foy,
And I have lost my poor dear Boy,
You know him-him you often see;
"He's not so wise as some folks be:"
"The devil take his wisdom! " said
The Doctor, looking somewhat grim,
"What, Woman! should I know of him?"
And, grumbling, he went back to bed I
" Owoe is me! 0 woe is me!
Here will I die; here will I die;
I thought to find rfy lost one here,
But he is neither far nor near,
Oh! what a wretched Mother I! ":
She stops, she stands, she looks about;
Which way to turn she cannot tell.
Poor Betty! 'it would ease her pain
If she had heart to knock again;
-The clock strikes three-a dismal knell!




The Idiot Boy


85


Then up along the town she hies,
No wonder if her senses fail;
This piteous news so much it shocked her,
She quite forgot to send the Doctor,
To comfort poor old Susan Gale.
And now she's high upon the down,
And she can see a mile of road:
"O cruel! I'm almost threescore;
Such night as this was ne'er before,
There's not a single soul abroad."
She listens, but she cannot hear
The foot of horse, the voice of man;  \
The streams with softest sound are flowing,
-,The grass you almost hear it growing,  J
You hear it now, if e'er you can.
The owlets through the.jg bue ni
Are shouting to each other still:
Fond lovers! yet not quite hob nob,
They lengthen out the tremulous sob,
That echoes far from hill to hill.
Poor Betty now has lost all hope,
Her thoughts are bent on deadly sin,
A green-grown pond she just has past,
And from the brink she hurries fast,
Lest she should drown herself therein.
And now she sits her down and weeps;
Such tears she never shed before;
"Oh dear, dear Pony! my sweet joy 1
Oh carry back my Idiot Boy!
And we will ne'er o'erload thee more."
A thought is come into her head:
The Pony he is mild and good,
And we have always used him well;
Perhaps he's gone along the dell,
And carried Johnny to the wood.
Then up she springs as if on wings;
She thinks no more of deadly sin;
If Betty fifty ponds should see,
The last of all her thoughts would be
To drown herself therein.




86


The Idiot Boy
O Reader! now that I might tell
What Johnny and his Horse are doing,
~What they've been doing all this time,
Oh could I put it into rhyme,
A most delightful tale pursuing 1
Perhaps "and no unlikely thought!
He with his Pony now doth roam
The cliffs and peaks so high that are,
To lay his hands upon a. star,
And in his pocket bring it home.
Perhaps he's turned himself about,
His face unto his horse's tail,
And, still and mute, in wonder lost,
W All silent as a horseman-ghost,
He travels slowly down the vale.
And now, perhaps, is hunting sheep,
A fierce and dreadful hunter he;
Yon valley, now so trim and green,
In five months' time, should he be seen,
A desert wilderness will be!
Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,
And like the very soul of evil,
He's galloping away, away,
'And so will gallop on for aye,
The bane of all that dread the devil!
I to the Muses have been bound
These fourteen years, by strong indentures.
0 gentle Muses! let me tell
But half of what to him befell;
He surely met with strange adventures.
O gentle Muses! is this kind?
Why will ye thus my suit repel?
Why of your further aid bereave me?
And can ye thus unfriended leave me,
Ye Muses! whom I love so well?
/ Who's yon,:that, near the waterfall,:
Which thunders down with headlong force,
Beneath the moon, yet shining fair,
As careless as if nothing were,
Sits upright on a feeding horse?
Unto his horse-there feeding free,
He seems, I think, the rein to give;




The   Idiot Boy                  87
Of moon or stars he takes no heed!;
Of such we in romances read::
-'Tis Johnny.! Johnny! as I live.
And that's the very Pony too!
Where is she, where is Betty Foy?
She hardly can sustain her fears;
The roaring waterfall she hears,
And cannot find her Idiot. Boy..
Your Pony's worth his weight in gold:
Then calm your terrors, Betty Foy!
She's coming from among the trees,
And now all full in view she sees
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy.
And Betty sees the Pony too:
Why stand you thus, good Betty Foy?
It is no goblin, 'tis no ghost,
'Tis he whom you so long have lost,
He whom you love, your Idiot Boy.
She looks again-her arms are upShe screams-she cannot move for joy;
She darts, as with a torrent's force
She almost has o'erturned the Horse,
And fast she holds her Idiot Boy.
And Johnny burrs, and laughs aloud;
Whether in cunning or in joy
I cannot tell; but while he laughs,
Betty a drunken pleasure quaffs
To hear again her Idiot Boy.
And now she's at the Pony's tail,.
And now is at the Pony's head,On that side now, and now on this;
And, almost stifled with her bliss,
A few sad tears does Betty shed.
She kisses o'er and o'er again
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy;
She's happy here, is happy there,
She is uneasy every where;
Her limbs are all alive with joy.
She pats the Pony, where or when
She knows not, happy Betty Foy!
The little Pony glad may be,
But he is milder far than she,
You hardly can perceive his joy.




88              The    Idiot Boy
"Oh! Johnny, never mind the Doctor;
You've done your best, and that is all: '
She took the reins, when 'this was said,
And gently turned the Pony's head
From the loud waterfall.
By this the stars were almost gone,
The moon was setting on the hill,
So pale you scarcely looked at her::
The little birds began to stir,
Though yet their tongues were still.
The Pony, Betty, and her Boy,
Wind slowly through the woody dale;
And who is she, betimes abroad,
That hobbles up the steep rough road?
J Who is it, but old Susan Gale?
Long time lay Susan lost in thought;
And many dreadful fears beset her,
Both for her Messenger and Nurse;
And, as her mind grew worse and worse,
Her body-it grew better.
She turned, she tossed herself in bed,
On all sides doubts and terrors met her;
Point after point did she discuss;
And, while her mind was fighting thus,
Her body still grew better.
"Alas! what is become of them?
These fears can never be endured;
I'll to the wood."-The word scarce said,
Did Susan rise up from her bed,
As if by magic cured.
Away she goes up hill and down,.
And to the wood at length is come;
She spies her Friends, she shouts a greeting;
Oh me!.it is a merry meeting
As ever was in Christendom.
The owls have hardly sung their last,
While our four travellers homeward wend;
The owls have hooted all night long,
And with the owls began my song,
And with the owls must end.




-The    Brothers                   89
For while they all were travelling home,
Cried Betty, "Tell us, Johnny, do,:
Where all this long night you have been,
What you have heard, what you have seen:
And, Johnny, mind you tell us true."
Now Johnny all night long had heard
The owls in tuneful concert strive;
No doubt too he the moon had seen;
For in the moonlight he had been
From eight o'clock till five.
And thus, to Betty's question, he
'Made answer, like a traveller bold,
(His very words I give to you,)
" The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,
And the sun did shine so cold!"
-Thus answered Johnny in his glory.
And that was all his travel's story. -.
(1798)
THE BROTHERS1
"THESE Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live
A profitable life: some glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise,
Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag,
Pencil in hand and book upon the knee,
Will look and scribble, scribble on and look,
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn.
But, for that moping Son of Idleness,
Why can he tarry yonder?-In our churchyard
Is neither epitaph nor monument,
Tombstone nor name-only the turf we tread
And a few natural graves."
To Jane, his wife,
Thus spake the homely Priest of Ennerdale.
1 This poem was composed in a grove at the north-eastern end of
Grasmere lake, which grove was in a great measure destroyed by
turning the high-road along the side of the water. The few trees that
are left were spared at my intercession. The poem arose out of the
fact, mentioned to me at Ennerdale, that a shepherd had fallen asleep
upon the top of the rock called The Pillar, and perished as here
described, his staff being left midway on the rock.




90


The- Brothers-;


It was a July evening; and he sate
Upon the long stone-seat beneath-the eaves
Of his old cottage,-as it chanced, that day,
Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards toothed with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of his youngest child,
Who, in the open air, with due accord
Of busy hands and back-and-forward steps
Her large round wheel was turning. Towards the field
In which the Parish Chapel- stood alone,
Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall,
While half an hour went by, the Priest had sent
Many a long look of wonder: and at last,
Risen from-his seat, beside the snow-white ridge
Of carded wool which the old man had piled
He laid his implements with gentle care,
Each in the other locked; and, down the path
That from his cottage to the churchyard led,
He took his way, impatient to accost
The Stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.
'Twas one well known to him in former days,
A Shepherd-lad; who ere his sixteenth year
Had left that calling, tempted to entrust
His expectations to the fickle winds
And perilous waters; with the mariners
A fellow-mariner; —and so had fared
Through twenty seasons; but he had been reared
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds
Of caves and trees:-and, when the regular wind
Between the tropics filled the steady sail,
And blew with the same breath through days and weeks,
Lengthening invisibly its weary line
Along the cloudless Main, he, in those hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang
Over the vessel's side, and gaze and gaze;
And, while the broad blue wave and sparkling foam
Flashed round him images and hues that wrought
In union with the employment of his heart,
He, thus by feverish passion overcome,Even with the organs of his bodily eye,.  - i -
Below him, in the bosom of the deep,. -




The Brothers


9


Saw mountains; saw the forms of sheep that grazed
On verdant hills-with dwellings among trees,
And shepherds clad in the same country grey
Which he himself had worn.1
And now, at last,
From perils manifold, with some small wealth
Acquired by traffic 'mid the Indian Isles,
To his paternal home he is returned,
With a determined purpose to resume
The life he had lived there; both for the sake
Of many darling pleasures, and the love
Which to an only brother he has borne
In all his hardships, since that happy time
When, whether it blew foul or fair, they two
Were brother-shepherds on their native hills.
-They were the last of all their race: and now,
When Leonard had approached his home, his heart
Failed in him; and,, not venturing to enquire
Tidings of one so long and dearly loved,
He to the solitary churchyard turned;
That, as he knew in what particular spot'
His family were laid, he thence might learn
If still his Brother lived, or to the file
Another grave was added.-He had found
Another grave,-near which a full half-hour
He had remained; but, as he gazed, there grew
Such a confusion in his memory,
That he began to doubt; and even to hope
That he had seen this heap of turf before,That it was not another grave; but one
He had forgotten. He had lost his path,
As up the vale, that afternoon, he walked
Through fields which once had been.well known to him:
And oh what joy this recollection now
Sent to his heart! he lifted up his eyes,
And, looking round, imagined that he saw
Strange alteration wrought on every side
Among the woods and fields, and that.the rocks,
And everlasting hills themselves were changed.
By this the Priest, who down the field had come,
Unseen by Leonard, at the churchyard gate.Stopped short,. —and thence, at leisure, limb. by limb
1 This description of the Calenture is sketched from an imperfect
recollection of an admirable one in prose, by Mr. Gilbert, author of the
Hurricane.... -




92


The Brothers


Perused him with a gay complacency.
Ay, thought the Vicar, smiling to himself,
'Tls one of those who needs must- leave the path
Of the world's business to go wild alone:
His arms have a perpetual holiday;
The happy man will creep about the fields,
Following his fancies by the hour, to bring
Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles
Into his face, until the setting sun
Write fool upon his forehead.-Planted thus
Beneath a shed that over-arched the gate
Of this rude churchyard, till the stars appeared
The good Man might have communed with himself,
But that the Stranger, who had left the grave,
Approached; he recognised the Priest at once,
And, after greetings interchanged, and given
By Leonard to the Vicar as to one
Unknown to him, this dialogue ensued.
Leonard. You live, Sir, in these dales, a quiet life:
Your years make up one peaceful family;
And who would grieve and fret, if, welcome come
And welcome gone, they are so like each other,
They cannot be remembered? Scarce a funeral
Comes to this churchyard once in eighteen months;
And yet, some changes must take place among you:
And you, who-dwell here, even among these rocks,
Can trace the finger of mortality,
And see, that with our threescore years and ten
We are not all that perish. -I remember,
(For many years ago I passed this road)
There was a foot-way all along the fields
By the brook-side-'tis gone-and that dark cleft!
To me it.does not seem to wear the face
Which then it had!
Priest.        Nay, Sir, for aught I know,
That chasm is much the sameLeonard.                 But, surely, yonderPriest. Ay, there, indeed, your memory is a friend
That does not play you false.-On that tall pike
(It is the-loneliest place of all these hills)
There were two springs which bubbled side by side,
As if they had been made that they might be
Companions for each other: the huge crag
Wias rent with lightning-one hath disappeared;
The other, left behind,'is flowing still.




The Brothers


93


For accidents and changes such as these,
We want not store of them;-a water-spout
Will bring down half a mountain; what a feast
For folks that wander up and down like you,
To see an acre's breadth of that wide cliff
One roaring cataract! a sharp May-storm
Will come with loads of January snow,
And in one night send twenty score of sheep
To feed the ravens; or a shepherd dies
By some untoward death among the rocks:
The ice breaks up and sweeps away a bridge;
A wood is felled:-and then for our own homes!
A child is born or christened, a field ploughed,
A daughter sent to service, a web spun,
The old house-clock is decked with a new face;
And hence, so far from wanting facts or dates
To chronicle the time, we all have here
A pair of diaries,-one serving, Sir,
For the whole dale, and one for each fireside —
Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians,
Commend me to these valleys
Leonard.                  Yet your Churchyard
Seems, if such freedom may be used with you,
To say that you are heedless of the past:
An orphan could not find his mother's grave:
Here's neither head nor foot stone, plate of brass,
Cross-bones nor skull,-type of our earthly state
Nor emblem of our hopes: the dead man's home
Is but a fellow to that pasture-field.
Priest. Why, there, Sir, is a thought that's new to me!
The stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread
If every English churchyard were like ours;.
Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth.,
We have no need of names and epitaphs;
We talk about the dead by our firesides..
And then, for our immortal part! we want.
No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale:
The thought of death sits easy on the man
Who has been born and dies among the mountains,
Leonard. Your- Dalesmen, then, do in each other's
thoughts..
Possess a kind of second life: no doubt
You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these graves?.
Priest.           For eightscore winters past,




94


The Brothers


With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard,
Perhaps I might; and, on a winter-evening,
If you were seated at my chimney's nook,
By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,
We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;
Yet all in the broad highway of the world.
Now there's a grave-your foot is half upon it,It looks just like the rest; and yet that man
Died broken-hearted.
Leonard.        'Tis a common case.
We'll take another: who is he that lies
Beneath yon ridge, the last of those three graves?'
It touches on that piece of native rock
Left in the churchyard wall.
Priest.        -      That's Walter Ewbank.
He had as white a head and fresh a cheek
As ever were produced by youth and age
Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore.
Through five long generations had the heart
Of Walter's forefathers o'erflowed the bounds
Of their inheritance, that single cottageYou see it yonder! and those few green fields.
They toiled and wrought, and still, from sire to son,
Each struggled, and each yielded as before
A little-yet a little,-and old Walter,
They left to him the family heart, and land
With other burthens than the crop it bore.
Year after year the old man still kept up
A cheerful mind,-and buffeted with bond,
Interest, and mortgages; at last he sank,
And went into his grave before his time.
Poor Walter! whether it was care that spurred him
God only knows, but to the very last
He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale:
His pace was never that of an old man:
I almost see him tripping down the path
With his two grandsons after him:-but you,
Unless our Landlord be your host to-night,
Have far to travel,-and on these rough paths
Even in the longest day of midsummerLeonard. But those two Orphans!
Priest.                 Orphans!-Such they wereYet not while Walter lived: for, though their parents
Lay buried side by side as now they lie,
The old man was a father to the boys,




The Brothers'


95


Two fathers in one father: and if tears,
Shed when he talked of them where they were not,
And hauntings from the infirmity of love,
Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart,
This old Man, in the day of his old age,
Was half a mother to' them.-If you weep, Sir,
To hear a stranger talking about strangers,
Heaven bless you when you areamong your kindred!
Ay-you may turn that way-it is a grave
Which will bear looking at.
Leonard.             ' These boys-I hope
They loved this good old Man?Priest.                    They did-and truly:
But that was what we almost overlooked,.
They were such darlings of each other. Yes,
Though from the cradle they had lived with Walter,
The only kinsman near them, and' though he
Inclined to both by reason of his age,
With a more fond, familiar tenderness;
They, notwithstanding, had much love to spare,
And it all went into each other's hearts.
Leonard, the elder-by just eighteen months,
Was two years taller: 'twas a joy to see,
To hear, to meet them!-From their house the school
Is distant three short miles, and in the time
Of storm and thaw, when every watercourse
And unbridged stream, such as:you may have noticed
Crossing our roads at every hundred steps,
Was swoln into a noisy rivulet,
Would Leonard then, when elder boys remained
At home, go staggering through the slippery fords,
Bearing his brother on his back. I-have seen him,
On windy days, in one of those stray brooks,
Ay, more than once I have seen him, mid-leg deep,
Their two books lying both on a dry stone,
Upon the hither side: and once I said,
As I remember, looking round these rocks
And hills on which we all of us were born,
That God who made the great book of the world
Would bless such pietyLeonard.:        It may be' thenPriest. Never did worthier lads break English bread:
The very brightest Sunday Autumn saw
With all its mealy clusters of ripe' nuts,:
Could never keep those! boys away from church,




96


The Brothers


Or tempt them to an hour of sabbath breach.'
Leonard and James! I warrant, every, corner    -
Among these rocks, and every hollow place.
That venturous foot could reach, to one or both
Was known as. well as to the flowers that grow there.
Like roe-bucks they went bounding o'er the hills;
They played like two young ravens on the crags:
Then they could write, ay and speak too, as well
As many of their betters-and for Leonard!
The very night before he went away,
In my own house I put into his hand
A Bible, and I'd wager house and field'
That, if he be alive, he has it yet.
Leonard. It seems, these Brothers have not lived to be
A comfort to each otherPriest..,:           That they might
Live to such end is what both old and young
In this our valley all of us have wished,
And what, for my part, I have often prayed:
But LeonardLeonard.    Then James still is left among you!i
Priest. 'Tis of the elder brother I am speaking:
They had an uncle;-he was at that time
A thriving man, and trafficked on the seas:
And, but for that same uncle, to this hour
Leonard had never handled rope or shroud::
For the boy loved the life which we lead here;
And though of unripe years, a stripling only,..
His soul was knit to this his native soil.
But, as I said, old Walter was too weak
To strive with such a: torrent; when he died,
The estate and house were sold; and all: their sheep,
A pretty flock, and which, for aught I know,
Had clothed the; Ewbanks for a thousand years.:-; -.
Well-all was gone, and they were destitute,;
And Leonard, chiefly for his Brother's sake,:
Resolved to try his fortune on the seas.
Twelve years are past since we had tidings from-him.
If there were one among us who had heard, i: "    '
That Leonard Ewbank was come home again,:
From the Great Gavel,l down by:Leeza's banks,
1 The Great Gavel, so called, I imagine, from its resemblance to. the
gable end of a house, is one of the highest of the, Cumberland moun'tains. It stands at the head of the several vales of Ennerdale, Wastdale,
and Borrowdale.  -
The Leeza is a river which flows into: the Lake of Enierdale: on




The Brothers


97


And down the Enna, far as Egremont,The day would be a joyous festival;
And those two bells of ours, which there you see —
Hanging in the open air-but, O good Sir I!This is sad talk-they'll never sound for himLiving or dead.- When last we heard of him,
He was in slavery among the Moors
Upon the Barbary coast.-'Twas not a little
That would bring down his spirit; and no doubt,
Before it ended in his death, the Youth
Was sadly crossed.-Poor Leonard! when we parted,
He took me by the hand, and said to me,
If e'er he should grow rich, he would return,
To live in peace upon his father's land,
And lay his bones among us.
Leonard.                If that day
Should come, 'twould needs be a glad day for him;
IHe would himself, no doubt, be happy then
As any that should meet himPriest.                    Happy! SirLeonard. You said his kindred all were in their graves,
And that he had one BrotherPriest.                   That is but
A fellow-tale of sorrow. From his youth
James, though not sickly, yet was delicate;
And Leonard being always by his side
Had done so many offices about him,
That, though he was not of a timid nature,
Yet still the spirit of a mountain-boy
In him was somewhat checked; and, when his Brother
Was gone to sea, and he was left alone,
The little colour that he had was soon
Stolen from his cheek; he drooped, and pined, and pinedLeonard. But these are all the graves of full-grown men!
Priest. Ay, Sir, that passed away: we took him to us;
He was the child of all the dale-he lived
Three months with one, and six months with another,
And wanted neither food, nor clothes, nor love:
And many, many happy days were his.
But, whether blithe or sad, 'tis my belief
His absent Brother still was at his heart.
And, when he dwelt beneath our roof, we found:
(A practice till this time unknown to him)
issuing from the Lake, it changes its name, and is called the End,
Eyne, or Enna. It falls into the sea a little below Egremont. —
E




98


Tihe Brothers


That often, rising from his bed at night,
He in his sleep would walk about, and sleeping
He sought his brother Leonard.-You. are moved '
Forgive me, Sir: before I spoke to you,
I judged you most unkindly.
Leonard.               But this Youth,
How did he die at last?
Priest.             One sweet May-morning,
(It will be twelve years since when Spring returns)He had gone forth among the new-dropped lambs,
With two or three: companions, whom- their course.
Of occupation led from height to height
Under a cloudless sun-till he, at length;,
Through weariness, or, haply, to indulge
The humour of the moment, lagged behind.
You see yon precipice;-it wears the shape
Of a vast building made of many crags;
And in the midst is. one- particular rock
That rises like a column from the vale,
Whence by our shepherds it is called, THE PILLAR.
Upon its aery summit.crowned with heath,
The loiterer, not unnoticed by his comrades,
Lay stretched at ease; but, passing by the place
On their return, they found that he was gone.
No ill was feared?; till one of them by chance
Entering, when evening was far spent, the house
Which at that time was Jamess -home, there learned
That nobody had seen him all that day:  -
The morning came, and still he was unheard of:
The neighbours were alarmed, and to the brook
Some hastened; some- ran to the lake:- ere noon
They found him at the foot of that same rock
Dead, and -witih:mangled limbs. The third day after
I buried- him, poor Youth, and there he lies!
Leonard.' And that then is his grave!-Before his death
You say that he saw many happy years?
Priest. Ay, that he didLeonard.               And all went well with him??Priest. If he had one, the Youth had twenty homes.
Leonard. And you believe, then, that his mind was easy?_Prk'es. Yes, long before he died, he found that time
Is a true friend to' sorrow; and unless'
His thoughts were; turned on. Leonard's uckless fortune~
He talked about -him with a cheerful love.
Leonard. He could not come to an unhallowed endd




The. Brothers
Priest. Nay, God forbid!-You recollect I mentioned
A habit which disquietude and grief
Had brought upon him; and we all conjectured
That, as the day was warmr he had lain- down
On the soft heath,-and, waiting for his comrades,
He there had fallen asleep.; that in his sleep
He to the margin of the precipice
Had walked, and from the summit had fallen headlong:
And so no doubt he perished. When the Youth
Fell, in his hand he must have grasped, we'think,
His shepherd's staff;- for on that Pillar of rock
It had been caught mid-way; and there for years
It hung;-and mouldered there.
The Priest here endedThe Stranger would -have thanked him, but he felt
A gushing from his heart, that took away
The power of speech.:Both left the spot in silence;
And Leonard, when they reached the churchyard gate,
As the Priest lifted up the latch, turned round,And, looking at the grave, he said, " My Brother! U ~.
The Vicar did not hear the words: -and now,
He pointed towards his dwelling-place, -entreating
That Leonard would partake his homely-fare:
The other thanked him with an earnest voice;
But added, that, the evening being calm,
He would pursue his journey. So they parted.
It- was not long ere Leonard reached a grove
That overhung the road: he there stopped short,
And, sitting down beneath the trees, reviewed  -
All that the Priest had said: his, early years
Were with him:-his long absence, cherished hopes,
And thoughts which had been his an hour before,
All pressed on him with such a weight, that now,
This vale, where he had been so happy, seemed
A place in which he could not bear to live:
So he relinquished all his purposes.
He travelled back to Egremont: and thence,
That night, he wrote a letter to the Priest,.Reminding him of what had passed between them;
-And adding,- with a. hope to be forgiven,
That it was from- the weakness of his heart
iHe had not dared to tell him who he was.
This done, he went on shipboard, and is now
A Seaman,.a grey-headed Mariner.
(i8oo)                       -            v




Ioo                   V Michael
MICHAEL:
A PASTORAL POEM1:' --
IF from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Greenhead Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for around that boisterous brook.
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
(/And made a hidden valley of their own.
[ No habitation can be seen - but they
I Who journey thither find themselves alone
[ With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
'-ltat, overhead are sailing in the sky.
'...-.  It is in truth-an utter solitude;
Nor should Ihave -made mention of this DellBut for one object which you might pass by,
Might see and notice not.  Beside the brook
Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones!
i And to that simple object appertains
\ A story-unenriched with Strange events,
~:Yet not unfit, I deem, for thefireside,
Or for the summer shade.   It was the first
Of those domestic tales that spake to me
Of shepherds, dwellers in the yalleys, men
\_Whom I already loved; not^verily -
or their own sakes, but for the fields:and hills'"' -^
Where was their occupation and abode..
And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
OQ   Nature, by the gentle agency
-6 Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
1 Written at Town-end, Grasmere, about the same time as "The
Brothers." The SheepfoJd, -on which so much of the poem tnuns,
remains, or rather the ruins of it. The character and circumstances of: '  Luke were taken from a family to whom had belonged, many years
-  * before, the house we lived in at.Town-end, along with some fields and
^  woodlands on the eastern shore of Grasmere.- The name of the Evening
Star was not in fact given to this house, but to another on the same side
o ~ of,;the valley, more to the north.
i +,




Michael


10o


Therefore, although it be a history.
Homely and:rude, I will relate the same,For the delight of a few natural hearts;
And, with yet fonder feeling, for the-sakeOf youthful Poets, who among these hills
Will be my second self when I am gone..f  PON the forest-side in Grasmere Vale --
j/There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name;.. An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
His bodily frame had been from youth to age -,
Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen,
Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.
ence had he learned the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone; and, oftentimes,
When others heeded not, He heard th
-Make subterraneous usic, like  no            - -
bg pe          a         d hrs nills. S  -to  -,, he Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
~ethought him, and he to himself would say,
'jrhe winds are now devising work for me "  -,
Ajnd, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives`_
I he traveller to a shelter, summoned him
l UJ to the mountains: he had been alone
Anid the heart of many thousand mists,
Thet came to hinm, and left him, on the heights. b O
So lived he till his eightieth year was past.
Anfd grossly that man errs,- who should suppose-,'
Th at the green valleys, and the streams and rockN
Were things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts.4
'    Fields, Awhere with cheerful spirits he had breathed
t he comrnon air; bills, which with vigorous step
He had so'often climbed; which had impressed
I So many incidents upon his mind  -
Of hardsri, skill or courage, joy or fear;
/  "fiich,'Ti e a book, preserved the memory 1 0
Of the dumb animPals, whom he had saved,.  \
Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts:
The certainty of honouilble gain;!I
Those fields, those hills ---what could they less? had laid '-'
Strong hold on his affectit iis, were to him..
A pleasurable feeling of blind love,        -'
The pleasure which there is n life -itself.   --
His days had not been passed intingleness.
4




102                  Michael
His Helpmate was a-comely matron, -old- —: -
"'  Though younger than himself full twenityears.:
She was a woman of a stirring life,-:.7..Whose heart was in her house.: two wheels she had
Of antique form;- this large, for spinning wool;
That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest
It was because the other was at work.
The Pair htad but one: inmate in their house,
An only Child, who had been born to them
When Michael, telling o'er his years, began
To deem that he was old,-in shepherd's phrase,
-]With one foot in the grave. This only Son,
With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm,
The one of an inestimable worth,  -
Made all their househId. I may trulsay,
-l o     were as   ova r in tht*v  "
t.ry..  When day was gone]
ations out of doors -
The Son and Fathertwe        oei,  even  en,  Y
/  Their labour did not cease; unless when all
Turned to the cleanly supper-board and there,
& Each with- aa n           and. elik, e
Sat round the  setpiled with tec.
And their ai home-made chee     Yet   - whente.
Was ena.edLuke (for so the.Son was named).:
[And his old Father both betook -themselves:.;
o such convenient work as might employ- - -
I fheir hands by the fireside; perhaps to card:.
\  Wool for the Housewife's spindle, - re      i
iSome injury done to sicklej failr scythe,
- of-ih prpemerffi o   r         -       ^fi
i      n-o-fro,m ceng, by the chimney's: edi-e,  V"
That in our ancient uncouth country style'
With huge and black projection overbrowe
Large space beneath, as duly as the light '  '
Of day grew dim the Housewife hung-a laan P.
An aged utensil, which had performed:  --  -
Service beyond 1all others of its kind. —
Early at evening did it burn-an(rlfateSurviving comrade of uncountd4 hours,:
Which, going by from year to year, had found,;
I   And left, the -couple neither gay perhaps
Nor cheerful, yet -with;objects and with hopes,
Living a life of eager industry,. -
And now, when LItke had reached his eighteenth year,
w-.


I




Michael


Io3


There by the light of this-old lamp they sat-,
Father and Son, while far into the nightThe Housewife plied her own peculiar work,
Making the cottage through the silent hours
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies.
This light was famous in its neighbourhood,:  And was a public symbol of the life
That thrifty Pair had lived. For, as it chance4d,
Their cottage ori a plot of rising ground
Stood single, with large prospect, north and south,
High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise,
And westward to the village near the lake;
And from. this -constant light, so regula  -
And so far seen, the House itself, by all
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,
Both old and young, was named THEE EVENING STAR.
/ (jThus living on through such a length of years,  -
The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must.needs
Have loved his Helpmate; but to Michael's heart
This son of his old age was yet more-dearLess from instinctive tenderness, the same
Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all/Than that a child, more than all other gifts
( That 9arth can offer to declining man,
-Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,.
And stirrings of inquietude, when they
/-c Byj tendency ofiiture needs must fail.
Exceeding was the lovehe bare to -him,
His heart and his heart's joy! For oftentimes - -:
Old Michael, while he was a babe in armsii C     "
Had done him female service, not alone      i
For pastime and delight, as is the use
Of fathers, but with patient mind enforced
To acts of tenderness; and he had rockedj
His cradle, as with a woman's gentle hand. \
- And, in a later time, ere yet the Boy  )
C Had put on boy's attire, did Michael love,
Albeit of a stern unbending mind,            -
To have the Young-one in his sight, when he   U' -
Wrought in the'field or on. is hg s stod.,
'Sate with a et isheep before -him stretched.. >
Under the large old oak, that near his door  -
Stood sirgle, and, from matchless depth of shade!
Chosen for the Shearer's covert from the sun,
Thence in our rustic dialect was called




o04                  Michael
The CLIPPING TREE,1 -aname which yet it bears. t
{( tThere, while they two were sitting in the shade,- - _.With others round them, earnest all and blithe,;  /
Would Michael exercise his heart with looks
Of fond correction and reproof bestowed
Upon the Child, if he disturbed the sheep
By catching at their legs, or with his shouts.
Scared them, while they lay till —beneath the shears.
And when by Heaven's good grace the boy grew up
A healthy Lad, and carried in his cheek
Two steady roses that were five years old;.-'
<0 Then Michael from a winter   ce cut %' <jt
With his own hand a -sapling, w ic-h e-hooped  -
With iron, making it throughout in all
Due requisites a perfect shepherd's staff,
And gave it to the Boy; wherewith equipt
He as a watchman oftentimes was placed
At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock;
And, to his office permaturely called,  /    A
There stood the urchin as you will divine,,'Something between a hindrance and a help; ',
)p6 And for this cause not always, I belieye,
Receiving from his Father hire of praise;
Though nought was left undone which staff, or voice,
Or looks, or threatening gestures, could perform..
But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand
Against the mountain blasts;and toigieights,
Not fearing toil, nor length of weary ways,
He with his Father daily went, and they
Were as companions, why should I relate
That objects which the Shepherd loved before
*     OW pR ere dearer now?- that from the Boy there came. '    'Feeliiigs aniff'emanations-things which were
'    Light to the sun and music to the wind;
And that the old Man's heart seemed born again? '.,
Thus in his Father's sight the Boy grew up:  -
And now, when he- had reached his eighteerth,year,;He was his comfort and his -daily hope.
While inthis sort the simple household livedFrom day to day, to Michael's ear there came
Distressful tidings. Long before-the:' -
- j AOf which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound
In surety for his brother's son, a man —
- Clipping is the word used -in the North of England for shearing,




4~  Michael,


I05.    nd industrious life, and ample means;
But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly          \.
Had prest upon him; and old Michael now.,   1,
' Was summoned to discharge the rffii u     ^ "" 4: A grievous penalty, but little less
t Than half his substance. This unlooked-for claim,
At the first hearing, for a moment took.:-' More hope out of his life than he supposed
4.That any old man ever could have lost.
A-~s soon as he had armed himself with strength
Vo look his trouble in the face, it seemed
The Shepherd's sole resource to sell at once  { f. -;
A portion of his patrimimonialields..:' /i/ "- f<at
Such was his first resolve; he thought again,
And his heart failed him. "Isabel," said he,
Two evenings after heshad heard the news,
/~Thave been toiling more than sevent years,
And in the open sunshine of God's loveJ   /
}. 4Have we all lived: yet if these fields of ours, /
\ Should pass into a stranger's hand, I think
'[That I could not lie quiet in my grave.
Or lot is a hard lot; the sun himself
Has scarcely been more diligent than I;
And I have lived to be a fool at last
To my own family. An evil man
That was, and made an evil choice/if he
Were false to us; and if he were rfot false,
There are ten thousand to whom l-oss like this
i0sHad been no sorrow. I forgive him;-but
'Twere better to be dumb than to talk thus.
When I began, my purpose was to speak
Of remedies and of a cheeru1l hope.
Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land
Shall not go from us, and it shall be free;
He shall possess it free as is the wig
'That pa! es over it.  e have, thou know'st,.-Atheri kiTnsman-he- will be our friend
In this distress. He is a prosperous man,; 0'lhrivipig in trade-and Luke to him shall go,
And With his kinsman's help and his own thrift
He quickly will repair this loss, and then
He njay return to us. If here he stay,
What, can be done? Where every one is poor,
What'tn be gained?", -At this the old Man paused,
E2




io6


' Michael


And Isabel sat silent, for her mind:::Was busy, looking back into past times
There's Richard Bateman, thought she to herself,
He was a parish-boy-at the church-door
<r bThey made a gathering for him, shillings, pence
And halfpennies, wherewith the neighbours bought
A basket, which they filled with pedlar's wares;
And, with this basket on his arm, the lad
Went up to London, found a master there,
'?;: Who, out of many, chose the trusty boy
To go and overlook his merchandise
Beyond the seas; where he grew wondrous rich,
-    And left estates and monies to the poor.
And, at his birth-place, built a chapel, floored
-)0With marble which he sent from foreign lands.
These thoughts, and many others of like sort,,
Passed quickly through the mind of Isabel,
And her tace brightened. The old Man was glad::'
And thus resumed:-" Well, Isabel! this scheme
These two days, has- been meat and drink to me.
Far more than we have lost is left us yet.
-We have enough-I wish indeed that I
Were younger; —but this hope is a good hope.
-Make ready Luke's hest garments, of the bestaf0 Buy for him more, and let us send him forth
r    To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night:
(  -If he could go, the Boy should go to-night."
)^(47  Here Michael ceased, and to the fields went forth
-With a light heart. The Housewife for five days
Was restless morn and night, and all day long
Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare
Things needful for the journey of her son.
But Isabel was-glad when Sunday came
—. _  Q _. stp  ln her work: for, when she lay
By Michaedr     P d  b   -egb
/ Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep:  -
i And when they rose at morning she could see -
That all his hopes were gone. Thatday at noop\
She said to Luke, while they two by themselves i! Were sitting at the door, "Thou must not go: -
/We have no'other Child but thee to lose,
I None to remember- do not go away,         f
j For if thou leave thy Father he will die."..
-  The Youth made answer with a jocund voice I  -:
dAnd Isabel, when she had-told -le-Frar



Mlchael                  iV7
Recovered heart. That evening her best fare
Did she bring forth, and all together sat...
Like happy people round a Christmas fire.
With daylight Isabel resumed her work;
And all the ensuing week the house appeared
As cheerful as a grove in Spring: at length
The expected letter from their kinsman came,
With kind assurances that he would do
His utmost for the welfare of the Boy;
31L To which, requests were added, that forthwith
He might be sent to him. I'en times.or more1.
The letter was read over; Isabel
Went forth to show it to the neighbours roundj;
Nor was there at that time on English land,Aprouder heart than Luke'. When Isabel
HaS to herhouse returned, the old Man said,
"He shall depart:'nhorrow.". To this word
The Housewife answered, talking much of things
Which, if at such short notice he should go,. - '
o-aWould surely-be forgotten. But at length  r
She gave cbnsent, and Michael was at ease.- /
Near the tumultuous brook of Greenhead Ghyll, '
In that deep valley, Michael had designed.
To build a Sheepfold; and, before he heard
The tidings of his melancholy loss,
For: this same purpose he had gathered up
A heap of stones, which by the streamlet's edge.
Lay thrown-together, ready for the work.
With Luke that evening thitherward he walked:,.And soon as they had reached the place he stopped,
And thus the old Man spake to him:-" My Son,
To-morrow thou wilt leave me: with full heart
I look upon thee, for thou art the same
That wert a promise to me ere thy birth, -
And all thy life hast:been my daily joy.
" " — i'ate to thee some little part: I
Of our two histories; 'twill do thee good
When thou art from me, even if I should touch
On things thou canst not know of. —After thou.(i First cam'st into the world -as oft befalls
To new-born infants-thou didst sleep awayTwo days, and blessings from thy Father's tongue
Then fell upon thee. Day by day passed on,
And still I loved thee with increasing love.,,Never to living ear came sweeter sounds -




I08


MiVchael


Than when I heard thee by our own fireside
First uttering, without'words, a natural tune
While thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy
Sing at thy Mother's breast. 'Month followed month,
~3 A-i And in the open fields my life was passed
And on the mountains; else I think that thou
Hadst been brought up upon thy Father's knees.
But we were playmates, Luke: among these hills,
As well thou knowest, in us the old and young
Have played together, nor with me didst thou
Lack any pleasure which a boy can know.".:
Duke had a manly heart; but at these words
He sobbed aloud., The old Man grasped his hand,
And said, " Nay, do not take it so-I see
63,That these are things of which I need not speak.
— Even to the utmost I have been to thee
A kind and'a good Father: and henr!n
I but repay a. gift which I myself..kReceived at others' hands; for, though now old
<Beyond the common life of man, I still.Remember them who loved me in my youth.
Both of them sleep together: here they lived,
As all their Forefathers had done; and when
t At length their time was come, they were not loth
'-:47? 0To give their bodies to the family mould.,
'\.     I wished that thou should'st live the life they lived:
But, 'tis a long time to look back, my Son,
And see so little gain from threescore years.,'These fields were burthened when they came to me;
Till I was forty years of age, not more
Than half of my inheritance was mine.
- I toiled ahd toiled; God blessed me in my work,
And till these three weeks past the land was free.
-It looks as if it never could endure
% 0 Another Master.- Heaven forgive me, Luke,
If I judge ill for thee, but it seems good  ^
That thou should'st go."
At this the old Man paused;
Then, pointing to the stones near which they stood,
fThus, after a short silence, he resumed:
)" This was a work for us; and now, my Son,
/ It is a work for me. But, lay one stneHere, lay it for me, Luke, with thine own hands.
Nay, Boy, be of good hope;-we both may live
-5qDTo see a better day. At eighty-four




Michael


I09


I still am strong and hale;-do thou thy part;
I will do mine.-I will begin again
With many tasks that were resigned to thee-.
Up to the heights, and in among the storms;:
Will I without thee go again, and do
All works which I was wont to do alone,
Before I knew thy face.-Heaven bless thee, Boy!
Thy heart these two weeks has been beating fast
With many hopes; it should be so-yes-yesyi  I knew that thou could'st never have a wish
To leave me, Luke: thou hast been bound to me
~,.Oly by links of love: when thou art gone,
I.hat will be left to us! —But, I forget
My purposes. Lay now the corner-stone,
As I requested; and hereafter, Luke,
When thou art gone away, should evil men,Be thy coimpanions, think of me, my Son,
ZAnd of this moment; hither turn thy thoughts,
And God will strengthen thee: amid all fear
qif' And all temptation, Luke, I pray that thou  -
May'st bear in mind the life thy Fathers lived, \,
Who, being innocent, did for that cause
Bestir them in good deeds. Now, fare thee well-'
-  h!n thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see
/ A work which is not here: a covenant?'Twill be between us; but, whatever fate
-; Befall thee, I shall love thee to the last,,\4d bear ttiy memory with me to the grave."
The Shepherd ended here; and Luke stooped down,,/fJ)And, as his Father had requested, laid
The first stone of the Sheepfold. At the sight
The old Man's grief broke from him; to his heart
He pressed his Son, he kissed him and wept;
A_ AioIthe~house together they returned.
-Hushed was that House in peace, or seeming peace,
Ere the night fell:-with- mrrow's dawn the Boyg
Began his journey, and when he had reached,
The public way, he put on a bold face;
And all the neighbours, as he passed their doors,:
53O Came forth with wishes and with farewell prayers, )
That followed him tillhe was out of sight. ---
A good report did from their Kinsman come,
Of Luke and his well-doing: and the Boy
Wrote loving letters, full of wondrous news,
Which, as the Housewife phrased it, were throughout




IO


Michael


"The prettiest letters that were ever seen." -..-.;:' -;
Both parents read them with rejoicing hearts.
So, many months passed on: and once-again
The Shepherd went about his daily work
p./ 6- With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now
Sometimes when he could find a leisure hour
He to that valley took his way, and there
Wrought at the Sheepfold. Meantime Luke began
To slacken in his duty; and, at length,..; '
l -M  He in the- dissolute city gave himself  — " - /, ~ '.t  < To evil courses:-lnomin d and shame.'i:":?
Fell on him, so tI-th e was driven at last ^itj^-v
To seek a hiding-lace beyond the seas. ____
I..-The. is a comfort in the strength of love;,\r  laCITwill make a thing endurable, which else
S. W. Could overset the brain, or break the heart:
I have; conversed with more than one who well
Remember the old Man, and what he was
-Years after he had heard this heavy news.
His bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks  -.
e went, and still looked up to-sun and cloud
And listened to the wind; and, as before,
Performed all kinds of labour for his sheep,
-  U And for the land, his small inheritance.
And to that hollow dell from time to time
Did he repair, to build the Fold of which
His flock.had need. 'Tis not forgotten yet
The pity which was then in every heart
\ For the old Man-and 'tis believed by all
That many and many a day he thither went,.nd never lifted up a single stone.;
There, by the Sheepfold, sometimesiwas he seen
Sitting alone, or with his faithful Dog,
t70Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.
The length of full seven years, from time to time,.
He at the building of this Sheepfold wrought,
And left the work unfinished when he died.  -.
Three years, or little more, did Isabel
Survive her Husband: at her death the estate
Was sold; and went into a stranger's hand.
"Tee Cottage which-was named-the EVENING STAR
Is gone-the ploughshare has been through the ground
On which it stood; great changes have been wroughtl
I:o In all the neighbourhood:-yet the oak is left




The Prioress's Tale


III


That grew beside their door; and the remains
Of the unfinished Sheepfold may be seen.q13 Beside the boisterous brook of Greenhead Ghyll. /
(i8oo)
THE PRIORESS'S TALE
FROM CHAUCER1
" Call up him who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold."
I
"0 LORD, our Lord! how wondrously," (quoth she)
" Thy name in this large world is spread abroad!
For not alone by men of dignity
Thy worship is performed and precious laud;
But by the mouths of children, gracious God!
Thy goodness is set forth; they when they lie
Upon the breast thy name do glorify.
II
Wherefore in praise, the worthiest that I may,
Jesu! of thee, and the white Lily-flower
Which did thee bear, and is a Maid for aye,
To tell a story I will use my power;
Not that I may increase her honour's dower,
For she herself is honour, and the root
Of goodness, next her Son, our soul's best boot.
III
"0 Mother Maid! 0 Maid and Mother free!
O bush unburnt 1 burning in Moses' sight!
That down didst ravish from the Deity,
Through humbleness, the spirit that did alight
Upon thy heart, whence, through that glory's might,
Conceived was the Father's sapience,
Help me to tell it in thy reverence!
1 In the following Poem no further deviation from the original has
been made than was necessary for the fluent reading and instant understanding of the Author: so much, however, is the language altered
since Chaucer's time, especially in pronunciation, that much was to
be removed, and its place supplied with as little incongruity as possible.
The ancient accent has been retained in a few conjunctions, as also
and alway, from a conviction that such sprinklings of antiquity would
be admitted, by persons of taste, to have a graceful accordance with
the subject. The fierce bigotry of the Prioress forms a fine background
for her tender-hearted sympathies with the Mother and Child; and the
mode in which the story is told amply atones for the extravagance of
the miracle.




II 2


The Prioress's Tale


IV
"Lady! thy goodness, thy magnificence,
Thy virtue, and thy great humility,
Surpass all science and all utterance;
For sometimes, Lady! ere men pray to thee
Thou goest before in thy benignity,
The light to us vouchsafing of thy prayer,
To be our guide unto thy Son so dear.
V
"My knowledge is so weak, O blissful Queen!
To tell abroad thy mighty worthiness,
That I the weight of it may not sustain;
But as a child of twelvemonths old or less,
That laboureth his language to express,
Even so fare I; and therefore, I thee pray,
Guide thou my song which I of thee shall say.
VI
"There was in Asia, in a mighty town,      -
'Mong Christian folk, a street where Jews might be,
Assigned to them and given them for their own,
By a great Lord, for gain and usury,
Hateful to Christ and to his company;
And through this street who list might ride and wend;
Free was it, and unbarred at either end.
VII.
" A little school of Christian people stood
Down at the farther end, in which there were
A nest of children come of Christian blood,
That learned in that school from year to year
Such sort of doctrine as men used there,
That is to say, to sing and read also,
As little children in their childhood do.
VIII
"Among these children was a Widow's son,
A little scholar, scarcely seven years old,
Who day by day unto this school hath gone,
And eke, when he the image did behold  -
Of Jesu's Mother, as he had been told,
This Child was wont to kneel adown and say
Ave Marie, as he goeth by the way.




The Prioress's Tale


1"3


IX
"This Widow thus her little Son hath taught
Our blissful Lady, Jesu's Mother dear,
To worship aye, and he forgat it not;
For simple infant hath a ready ear.
Sweet is the holiness of youth: and hence,
Calling to- mind this matter when I may,
Saint Nicholas in my presence standeth aye,
For he so young to Christ did reverence.
x
"This little Child, while in the school he sate
His Primer conning with an earnest cheer,
The whilst the rest their anthem-book repeatThe Alma Redeptloris did he hear;
And as he durst he drew him near and; near,
And hearkened to the words andto the note,
Till the first verse he learned it all by rote.
XI
"This Latin knew he nothing what it said,
For he too tender was of age to know;
But to his comrade he repaired, and prayed
That he the meaning of this song would show,
And unto him declare why men sing so;
This oftentimes, that he might be at ease,
The child did him beseech on his bare knees.
XII
'' His Schoolfellow, who elder was than he,
Answered him thus:-' This song, I have heard say,
Was fashioned for our blissful Lady free;
Her to salute, and also her to pray
To be our help upon our dying day:
If there is more in this, I know it not;
Song do I learn,-small grammar I have got.'
XIII
"'And is this song fashioned in reverence
Of-Jesu's Mother?' said this Innocent;
'Now, certes, I will use my diligence
To con it all ere Christmas-tide be spent;
Although I for my Primer shall bee shent,
And shall be beaten three times in an hour,
Our Lady I will praise with all my power.'




iI4


The Prioress's Tale


XIV
"His Schoolfellow, whom he had so besought,
As they went homeward taught him privily,
And then he sang it well and fearlessly,
From word to word according to the note:
Twice in -a day it passed through his throat;
Homeward and schoolward whensoe'er he went,'
On Jesu's Mother fixed was his intent.
XV
" Through all the Jewry (this before said I)
This little Child, as he came to and fro,
Full merrily then would he sing and cry,
0 Alma Redemptoris-! high and low:
The sweetness of Christ's Mother pierced so
His heart, that her to praise, to her to pray,
He cannot stop his singing by the way...XVI
"The Serpent, Satan, our first foe, that hath
His wasp's nest in Jew's'heart, upswelled-' 0 woe,
O Hebrew people!' said he in his wrath,
'Is it an honest thing? Shall this be so?
That such a Boy where'er he lists shall go
In your despite, and sing his hymns and saws,
Which is against the reverence of our laws!
XVII
"From that day forward have the Jews conspired,
Out of the world this Innocent to chase;
And' tothis end a Homicide they hired,
That in a aalley had a privy place,
And, as the Child 'gan to the school to pace,
This cruel Jew him seized, and held him fast
And cut his throat, and in a pit him cast.
XVIII
"I say that him into a pit they threw,
A loathsome pit, whence noisome scents exhale;
O cursed folk! away, ye Herods new!
What may your ill intentions you avail?
Murder will out; certes it will not fail;
Know, that the honour: of high God may spread,
The blood cries- out on your accursed deed. -




The Prioress's Tale


II5


XIX
"O0 Martyr 'stablished in virginity!
Now may'st thou sing for aye before the throne,
Following the Lamb celestial," quoth she,
"Of which the great Evangelist, Saint John,
In Patmos wrote, who saith of them that go
Before the Lamb singing continually,
That never fleshly woman they did know.
XX
"Now this poor widow-waiteth all that night
After her little Child, and he came not;
For which, by earliest glimpse of morning light,
With face all pale with dread and busy thought,
She at the School and elsewhere him hath sought
Until thus far she learned, that he had been
In the Jews' street, and there he last was seen.
XXI
"With Mother's pity in her breast enclosed
She goeth, as she were half out of her mind,
To every place wherein she hath supposed
By likelihood her little Son to find;
And ever on Christ's Mother meek and kind
She cried, till to the Jewry she was brought,
And him among the accursed Jews she sought.
XXII
"She asketh, and she piteously doth pray
To every Jew that dwelleth in that place
To tell her if her child had passed that way;
They all said-Nay; but Jesu of his grace
Gave to her thought, that in a little space
She for her Son in that same spot did cry
Where he was cast into a pit hard -by.
XXIII
"   thou great God that dost perform thy laud
By mouths of Innocents, lo! here thy might;
This gem of chastity, this emerald,
And eke of martyrdom this ruby bright,
There, where with mangled throat he lay upright,
The Alma Redemptoris 'gan to sing,
So loud, that with his voice the place did ring.




ii6


The Prioress's Tale


XXIV
"The Christian folk that through the.Jewry: went
Come to the.spotin wonder at the thing;.  -
And hastily they for the Provost sent;
Immediately he came, not tarrying,.
And praiseth Christ that is our heavenly King,
And eke his Mother, honour of Mankind:
Which done he.bade that they the Jews should bind.
Xxv
"This-Child with piteous lamentation then
Was taken up, singing his song alway;
And with procession great and pomp of men
To the next Abbey him they bare away;.
His Mother swooning by the body lay:
And scarcely could the people that were near
Remove this second Rachel from. the bier.
XXVI
"Torment and- shameful death to every oneThis Provost doth for those bad Jews prepare
That of this murder wist, and that anon:
Such wickedness his judgments cannot spare;
Who will do evil, evil shall he bear;
Them therefore with wild horses did he draw,
And after that he hung them-by the law.
XXVII
"Upon his bier this Innocent doth lie
Before the altar while the Mass doth last:
The Abbot with his convent's company
Then sped themselves to bury: him full fast;
And, when they holy water on him cast,
Yet spake this Child when sprinkled was the water,
And sang, 0 Alma Redemptoris Mater 1
xxviii
XXVIII
"This Abbot, for he was a holy man,
As all Monks.are, or surely ought to be,  '
In supplication to the Child began
Thus saying, '-0 dear Child! I summon thee
In virtue of the holy Trinity
Tell me the cause why thou dost sing this hymn
Since that thy throat is cut, as it doth seem.'




The Prioress's Tale


-I I7


XXIX
"'My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow,'
Said this young Child, 'and by the law of kind
I should have died, yea many hours ago;
But Jesus Christ, as in the looks ye find,
Will that his glory last, and be in: mind;
And, for the worship of his Mother dear,
Yet may I sing O Alma - loud and clear.
XXX
"' This well of mercy, Jesu's Mother sweet,
After my knowledge I have loved alway;
And in the hour when I my death did meet
To me she came, and thus to me did say,
'Thou in thy dying sing this holy lay,'
As ye have heard; and soon as I had sung
Methought she laid a grain upon my tongue.
XXXI
"'Wherefore I sing, nor can from song refrain,
In honour of that blissful Maiden free,
Till from my tongue off-taken is the grain;
And after that thus said she unto me;
'My little Child, then will I come for thee
Soon as the grain from off thy tongue they take:
Be not dismayed, I will not thee forsake!"
XXXII
xxxi.
"This holy Monk, this Abbot-him mean I,
Touched then his tongue, and took away the grain;
And he gave up the ghost full peacefully;
And, when the Abbot had this wonder seen,
His salt tears trickled down like showers of rain;
And on his face he dropped upon the ground,
And still he lay as if he had been bound.
XXXIII
"Eke the whole Convent on the pavement lay,
Weeping and praising Jesu's Mother dear;
And after that they rose, and took their way,
And lifted up this Martyr from the bier,
And in a tomb of precious marble clear
Enclosed his uncorrupted body sweet;Where'er he be, God grant us'him to meet!




I18   The Cuckoo arnd the Nightingale
XXXIV
"Young Hew of Lincoln! in like sort laid low
By cursed Jews-thing well and widely known, iFor it was done a little while-ago —:
Pray also thou for us, while here we tarry:
Weak sinful folk, that God, with pitying eye,
In mercy would his mercy multiply
On us, for reverence of his Mother Mary "
(i801)
THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE
FROM CHAUCER....
THE God of Love, —ah, benedicite I
How mighty and how great a Lord is he!
For he of low hearts can make high, of high
He can make low, and unto death bring nigh;
And hard hearts he can make them kind and free.:     -         *II
Within a little time, as hath been found,
He can make sick folk whole and fresh and sound:
Them who are whole in body and in mind,
He can make sick,-bind can he and unbind
All that he will have bound, or have unbound.
--  III     -
To tell his might my wit may not suffice;
Foolish men he can make them out of wise; —
For he may do all that he will devise;
Loose livers he can make abate their vice,
And proud hearts can make tremble in a trice.
IV
In brief, the whole of what he will, he may;
Against him dare not any wight say nay;To humble or afflict whome'er he will,
To gladden or to grieve, he 'hath like skill;
But most his might he sheds on the eve of May.
For every true heart, gentle heart and- free,
That with him is, or thinketh so to be,
Now against May shall have some stirring-whether
To joy, or be it to some mourning; never
- ^. At other time, methinks, in like degree.  —:
x.




The Cuckoo and the Nightingale


II9


VI
For now when they may hear the small birds' song,
And see the budding leaves the branches throng,
This unto their remembrance doth bring
All kinds of pleasure mixed with sorrowing;
And longing of sweet thoughts that ever long.
VII
And of that longing heaviness doth come,
Whence oft great sickness grows of heart and home:
Sick are they all for lack of their desire;
And thus in May their hearts are set on fire,
So that they burn forth in great martyrdom.
VIII
In sooth, I speak from feeling, what though now
Old am I, and to genial pleasure slow;
Yet have I felt of sickness through the May,
Both hot and cold, and heart-aches every day,How hard, alas! to bear, I only know.
IX
Such shaking doth the fever in me keep
Through all this May that I have little sleep;
And also 'tis not likely unto me,
That any living heart should sleepy be
In which Love's dart its fiery point doth steep.
x
But tossing lately on a sleepless bed,
I of a token thought which Lovers heed;
How among them it was a common tale,
That it was good to hear the Nightingale,
Ere the vile Cuckoo's note be uttered.
XI
And then I thought anon as it was day,
I gladly would go somewhere to essay
If I perchance a Nightingale might hear,
For yet had I heard none, of all that year,
And it was then the third night of the May.
XII
And soon as I a glimpse of day espied,
No longer would I in my bed abide,
But straightway to a wood that was hard by,
Forth did I go, alone and fearlessly,
And held the pathway down by a brook-side;




120   The Cuckoo and the Nightingale'
XIII
Till to a lawn I came all white and green,.
I in so fair a one had never been.
The ground was green, with daisy powdered over;
Tall were the flowers, the grove a lofty cover,.
All green and white; and nothing else was seen,
XIV
There sate I down among the fair fresh, flowers,
And.saw the birds come tripping from their bowers,.
Where they had rested them all night; and they,
Who were so joyful at the light of day,
Began to honour May with all their powers.
xv
Well did they know that service all by rote,,
And there was many and many a lovely note,
Some, singing loud, as if they had complained;
Some with their notes another manner feigned;
And some did sing all out with the full throat.;
XVI
They pruned themselves, and made themselves right gay,
Dancing and leaping light upon the spray;
And ever two and two together were,
The same as they had chosen for.the year,
Upon Saint Valentine's returning day.
XVII
Meanwhile the stream, whose bank I sate upon,
Was making such a noise.as it ran on
Accordant to the sweet Birds' harmony;
Methought that it was the best melody
Which ever to man's ear a passage won.
XVIII
And for delight, but how I never wot,
I in a slumber and a-swoon was caught,
Not all asleep and yet not wak ng wholly
And as I lay, the Cuckoo, bird unholy,
Broke silence, or I heard him in my thought..
XIX
And that was right upon a tree fast by,
And who was then ill satisfied but I?
Now, God, quoth I, that died upon the rood,
From thee and thy base throat, keep all that's good,
Full little joy have I now of thy cry.




'The Cuckoo and the Nightingale


I121


XX
And, as I with the Cuckoo thus 'gan chide,
In the next bush that was me fast beside,
I heard the lusty Nightingale so sing,
That her clear voice made a loud rioting,
Echoing thorough all the green wood wide.
XXI
Ah i good sweet Nightingale! for my heart's cheer,
Hence hast thou stayed a little while too long;
For we have had the sorry Cuckoo here,
And she hath been before thee with her song;
Evil light on her I she hath done me wrong.
XXII
But hear you now a wondrous thing, I pray;
As long as in that swooning-fit I lay,
Methought I wist right well what these birds meant,
And had good knowing both of their intent,
And of their speech, and all that they would say.
XXIII
The Nightingale thus in my hearing spake:Good Cuckoo, seek some other bush or brake,
And, prithee, let us that can sing dwell here;
For every wight eschews thy song to hear,
Such uncouth singing verily dost thou make.
XXI-V
What! quoth she then, what is't that ails thee now?
It seems to me I sing as well as thou;
For mine's a song that is both true and plain,Although I cannot quaver so in vain
As thou dost: in thy throat, I wot not how.
XxvAll men may understanding have of me,
But, Nightingale, so may they -not of thee;:
For thou hast many a foolish and quaint cry:Thou say'st OSEE, OSEE, then how may I
Have knowledge, I thee pray, what this may be?
XXVI
Ah, fool! quoth she, wist thou not what it is?
Oft as I say OSEE, OSEE, I wis,
Then mean I, that I should be wonderous fain
That shamefully they one and all were slain,
Whoever against Love mean aught amiss.:




X 22    The  Cuckoo:and the       Nigh tingale
XXVII
And also would I that they all- were dead,
Who do not think in love their life to lead;
For who is loth the God of Love to obey,Is only fit to die, I dare well say,
And for that cause OSEE I cry; take heed-! -
XXVIII
Ay, quoth the Cuckoo, that is a quaint law,
That all must love or die; but I withdraw,
And take my leave of all such company,
For mine intent it neither is to die,
Nor ever while I live Love's yoke to draw.
XXIX
For lovers of all folk that be alive,
The most disquiet have and least do thrive;
Most feeling have of-sorrow, woe, and care,
And the least welfare cometh -to their share;.
What need is there against the truth -to-strire-?
XXX
What! quoth she, thou art all out of thy mind,
That in thy churlishness a cause canst find
To speak of Love's true Servants in this mood;
For in this world no service is so good
To every wight that gentle is of kind.
XXXI
For thereof comes all goodness and all worth;
All gentiless and honour thence come forth;
Thence worship comes, content and true heart's pleasure,
And full-assured trust, joy without measure,
And jollity, fresh cheerfulness, and mirth;
XXXII
And bounty, lowliness, and courtesy,
And seemliness, and faithful company,
And dread of shame that wil!l not do amiss;  -
For he that faithfully Love's servant is,
Rather than be disgraced, would chuse to die.
xxxIII
And that the very truth it is which I
Now say-in such belief I'll live and die;
And Cuckoo, do thou so, by my advice.
Then, quoth she, let me never hope for bliss,
If with that counsel I do e'er comply.




The Cuckoo and         the Nightingale        123
XXXIV
Good Nightingale! thou speakest wondrous fair,
Yet for all that, the truth is found elsewhere;
For Love in young folk is but rage, I wis:
And Love in old folk a great dotage is;
Who most it useth, him 'twill most impair.
XXXV
For thereof come all contraries to gladness!
Thence sickness comes, and overwhelming sad-ness,
Mistrust and jealousy, despite, debate,
Dishonour, shame, envy importunate,
Pride, anger, mischief, poverty, and madness.
xxxvi
Loving is aye an office of despair,
And one thing is therein which is not fair;
For whoso gets of love a little bliss,
Unless it alway ~stay with him, I wis
He may full soon go with an old man's hair.
XXXVII
And, therefore, Nightingale! do thou keep nigh,
For trust me well, in spite of thy quaint cry,
If long time from thy mate thou be, or far,
Thou'lt be as others that forsaken are;
Then shalt thou raise a -clamour as do I.
XXXVIII
Fie, quoth she, on thy name, Bird ill beseen!
The God of Love afflict thee with all teen,
For thou art worse than mad a thousand fold;
For many a one hath virtues manifold,
Who had been nought, if Love had never been.
XXXIX
For evermore' his servants Love amendeth,
And he from every blemish them defendeth;
And maketh them to burn, as in a fire,
In loyalty, and worshipful desire,
And, when it likes him, joy enough them sendeth.
XL
Thou Nightingale!. the Cuckoo said, be still,
For Love no reason hath but his own will;For to th' untrue he oft gives ease and joy;
True lovers doth so bitterly annoy,
He lets them perish through that grievous ill.




124    The -Cuckoo and         the  Nightingale
XLI
With such a master would I never be-;  -
For he, in sooth, is,blind, and may not see,
And knows not when he hurts and when -he heals;
Within this court full seldom Truth avails,
So diverse in his wilfulness is he.
X-LII...
Then of the Nightingale did-:I take note,
How from her inmost heart a sigh she brought,
And said, Alas! -that ever I was- born,
Not one word have I now, 1 am so forlorn,And with that word, she into tears burst out.
XLIII
Alas, alas! my very heart will break,
Quoth she, to hear this churlish bird thus speak
Of Love, and of his holy services;
Now, God of Love; thou help me in some wise,
That vengeance on this Cuckoo I may wreak...  -
XLIV
And so methought I started up anon,
And to the brook I ran and got a stone,
Which at the Cuckoo hardily I cast,
And he for dread did fly away full fast;
And glad, in sooth, was I when he was gone.
XLV.   '-'........     -
And as he flew, the Cuckoo, ever and aye,
Kept crying " Farewell!: —farewell, Popinjay 1"
As if in scornful mockct y of me;
And on I hunted him from tree to tree,.
Till he was far, all out of sight, away.
XLVI
Then straightw.ay came the Nightingale ta me,
And said, Forsooth, my, friend, do I thank thee,
That thou wert near to rescue me; and now,
Unto the God of Love 1 make a vow,
That all this May I will thy songstress be.
1 From a manuscript in the Bodleian, as are also stanzas 44 and 45,
which are necessay.to complete the sense..




The Cuckoo and         the Nightingale        fI25
XLVII
Well satisfied, I thanked her, and she said,:
By this mishap n-:, longer be dismayed,
Though thou the Cuckoo heard, ere thou heard'st me;
Yet if I live it shall amended be,
When next May comes, if I am not afraid.
XLVIII
And one thing will I counsel thee als6,
The Cuckoo trust not thou, nor his Love's saw;
All that she said is an outrageous lie.
Nay, nothing shall me bring thereto, quoth I,
For Love, and it hath done me mighty woe.
XLIX
Yea, hath it? use, quoth she, this medicine;This May-time, every day before thou dine,
Go look on the fresh daisy; then say I,
Although for pain thou may'st be like to die,
Thou wilt be eased, and less wilt droop and pine.-,
L
And mind always that thou be good and true,
And: I will sing one song, of many new,
For love of thee, as loud as I may cry;
And then did she begin this song full high,
"Beshrew all them that are in love untrue."
LI
And soon as she had sung it to the end,
Now farewell, quoth she, for I hence must wend;
And, God of Love, that can right well and may,
Send unto thee as mickle joy this day,
As ever he to Lover yet did send.
LIIThus takes the Nightingale her leave of me;
I pray to God with her always to be,
And joy of love to send her evermore;
And shield us from the Cuckoo and her lore,
For there is not so false a bird as she.
LIII
Forth then she flew, the gentle Nightingale,
To all the Birds that lodged within that dale,.
And gathered each and all into one place;
And them besought to hear her doleful case,
And thus it was that she began her tale.:




I26    The Cuckoo and        the Nightingale;LIV
The Cuckoo-'tis-, not well.that, I should hid:e
How she and- Idid each the other chide,.
And- without ceasing, since it was daylight;
And now I pray you all to do: me right
Of that false Bird whom Love can not abide. -
LV
Then spake one_ Bird, and full assent all gave;
This, matter asketh counsel good as;- grave,.
For birds we are.-all here together brought.;
And, in good sooth, the Cuckoo here is not
And therefore we a Parliament will have..
LVI
And thereat shall the Eagle be our Lord,
And other Peers whose- names are on record:;'
A summons, to the Cuckoo shall be sent,
And judgment there be given; or that intent
Failing, we finally shall make accords
LVII
And all this shall. be done,:without a nay,
The morrow after Saint Valentines day,
Under a maple that is. well beseen,Before the chamber-window of the Queen  -
At Woodstock,- on the meadowi green and gay.
LVI-I
She thanked- them; and then her leave she took,
And flew into- a hawthorn by that brook.;And there she sate and sung-upon that tree"For term of life Love shall have holdx of me ' —
So loudly, that I with that song: awoke  - -
Unlearned Book and rude, as well I know,
For beauty thou. hast none; nor eloquence,
Who did -on thee the hardiness bestow
To appear before my Lady? but a sense
Thou surely hast of her benevolence, -
Whereof her hourly bearing proof-doth give;
For of all good she is the best alive.
Alas, poor Booklt — for thy unworthiness,
To show to her some pleasant meaniingsi writ
In winning words, since through her gentiless,
Thee she accepts as for her service fit!Oh! it repents- me I have neither wit ---. -:




Troilus- and Cresida


i27


Nor leisure unto thee more- worth to give-;
For of all good she is the best alive.
Beseech her meekly with all lowliness,
Though I be far from her I reverence,
To think upon my truth and stedfastness,
And to abridge my sorrow's violence,,
Caused by the wish, as knows your sapience,
She of her liking proof to me would give;
For of all good she is the best alive.- -
L'ENVOY
Pleasure's Aurora, Day of gladsomeness!
Luna by night, with heavenly influence
Illumined! root of beauty and goodness,
Write, and allay, by your beneficence,
My sighs breathed forth i-n silence,-comfort give!
Since of all good, you -are- the- best alive.
(I80I)
TROILUS AND      CRESIDA
- FROM CHAUCER
NEXT morning Troilus began to clear
His eyes from sleep, -at the first break of day,
And unto Pandarus, his own Brother dear,
For love of God, full piteously did say,
We must the Palace see of Cresida;
For since we yet may have no other feast,
Let us behold her Palace at the least!
And therewithal to cover his intent
A cause he found-into the Town to go,
And they right forth to Cresid's Palace went;
But, Lord, this simple Troilus was woe,
Him thought his- sorrowful heart would break in two;
For when he saw her doors fast bolted all,
Well nigh for sorrow down he 'gan to fall.
Therewith when this true Lover 'gan behold,
How shut was every window of the place,
Like frost he thought his heart was icy cold;For which, with changed, pale, and deadly face,
Without word uttered, forth he 'gan to pace;
And on his purpose bent so fast to ride,
That no wight his continuance espied.




128


Troilus and Cresida'


Then said he.thus,O- Palace desolate 1
O house of houses, once so richly dight
O Palace empty and disconsolate!
Thou lamp of which extinguished is the light;
0 Palace whilom day that now art night,
Thou ought'st to fall and I to die; since she
Is gone who held us both in sovereignty.
0, of all houses once the crowned boast 1
Palace illumined with the sun of bliss;
O ring of which the ruby now is lost,
O cause of woe, that cause has been of bliss:
Yet, since I may no better, would I kiss
Thy cold doors; but I dare not for this rout;
Farewell, thou shrine of which the Saint is out.
Therewith he: cast on Pandarus an eye,
With changed face, and piteous to behold;
And when he might his time aright espy,
Aye as he rode, to Pandarus he told
Both his new sorrow and his joys of old,
So piteously, and with so dead a hue,
That every wight might on his sorrow rue.
Forth from the spot he rideth up and down,
And everything to his rememberance
Came as he rode by places of the townWhere he had felt such perfect pleasure once.
Lo, yonder saw I mine own Lady dance,
And in that Temple she with her bright eyes,
My Lady dear, first bound me captive-wise.
And yonder with joy-smitten heart have I
Heard my own Cresid's laugh; and- once at play
I yonder saw her eke full blissfully;
And yonder once she unto me 'gan sayNow, my sweet Troilus, love me well, I pray!
And there so graciously did me behold,.: -
That hers unto the death my heart I hold.
And at the corner of that self-same house
Heard I my most beloved Lady dear,
So womanly, with voice melodious
Singing so well, so goodly, and so clear,
That in my soul methinks I yet do hear
The blissful sound; and in that very place
My Lady first me took unto her grace.:




Troilus and     Cresida
O.blissful God of Love! then thus he cried,-:
When I the process have in memory,
How thou hast wearied me on every side,
Men thence a book might make, a history;
What need to seek a conquest over me,
Since I am wholly at thy will? what joy
Hast thou thy own liege subjects to destroy?
Dread Lord! so fearful when provoked, thine ire
Well hast thou wreaked on me by pain and grief.
Now mercy,. Lord! thou know'st well I desire
Thy grace above all pleasures first and chief;
And live and die I will in thy belief;
For which I ask for guerdon but one boon,
That Cresida again thou send me soon.
Constrain her heart as quickly to return,
As thou dost mine with longing her to see,
Then know I well that she would not sojourn.
Now, blissful Lord, so cruel do not be
Unto the blood of Troy, I pray of thee,
As Juno was unto the Theban blood,
From whence to Thebes came griefs in- multitude.
And after this he to the gate did go,
Whence Cresid rode, as if in haste she was;
And up and down there went, and to and fro,
And to himself full oft he said, alas!
From hence my hope and solace forth did pass.
0 would the blissful God now for his joy,
I might her see again coming to Troy!
And up to yonder hill was I her guide;
Alas, and there I took of her my leave;
Yonder I saw her to her Father ride,
For very grief of which my heart shall cleave;And hither home I came when it was eve;
And here I dwell an outcast from all joy,
And shall, unless I see her soon in Troy.
And of himself did he imagine oft,
That he was blighted, pale, and waxen less
Than he was wont; and that in whispers soft
Men said, what may it be, can no one guess
Why Troilus hath all this heaviness?
All which he of himself conceited wholly
Out of his weakness and his melancholy.
F


129




130


Troilus and Cresida


Another time he took into his head,
That every wight, who in the way passed by,
Had of him ruth, and fancied that they said  -
I am right sorry Troilus will die:And thus a day or two drove wearily,
As ye have heard; such life 'gan he to lead
As one that standeth betwixt hope and dread..
For which it pleased him in his songs to show
The occasion of his woe, as best he might;
And made a fitting song, of words.but few,
Somewhat his woeful heart to make more light;
And when he was removed from all men's sight,
With a soft night voice, he of his Lady dear,
That absent was, 'gan sing as ye may hear.
0 star, of which I lost have all the light,
With a sore heart well ought I 'to bewail,
That ever dark in torment, night by night,
Toward my death with wind- Isteer and sail;.
For which upon the tenth night if thou fail
With thy bright beams to-guide me but one hour,
My ship and me Charybdis will devour.
As soon as he this song had thus sung through,
He fell again into his.sorrows old;. -
And every night, as was his wont to do,
Troilus stood the bright moon to behold;.
And all his trouble to the moon he told,
And said; I wis, when thou art horn'd anew,
I shall be glad if all the world be true.
Thy horns were old as now upon that: morrow,
When hence did journey my bright Lady dear,
That cause is of my torment and my sorrow;
For which,.oh, gentle Luna, bright and clear,:
For love of God, run fast above thy: sphere;'
For when thy:horns begin once more tor.spring,
Then shall she come, that.with her bliss may bring..
The day is more, and longer every night
Than they were wont to be- for he thought so-;
And that-the sun did take his course not right,.
By longer fway than he was wont to go;
And said, I am irn constant dread:I trow,
That Phaeton his saon is yet alive,;
His too fond father's car amiss to drive.




Ode


T-3


Upon the walls fast also would he walk,
To the end that he the Grecian host might see;
And ever thus he to himself would talk:Lo! yonder is my own bright Lady free;
Or yonder is it that the tents must be;
And thence does come this air which is so sweet,
That in my soul I feel the joy of it.
And certainly this wind, that more and more
By moments thus increaseth in my face,
Is of my Lady's sighs heavy and sore;
I prove it thus; for in no other space
Of all this town, save only in this place,
Feel I a wind, that soundeth so like pain;
It saith, Alas, why severed are we twain?
A weary while in pain he tosseth thus,
Till fully past and gone was the ninth night;
And ever at his side stood Pandarus,
Who busily made use of all his might
To comfort him, and make his heart more light;
Giving him always hope, that she the morrow
Of the tenth day will come, and end his sorrow.
(.8oi)
ODE- -
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS,OF
EARLY CHILDHOOD1
THERE was a time when -meadow, grove, and stream,.
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream,
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-,
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
1 This was composed during my residence at Town-end, Grasmere.
Two years at least passed between the writing of the four first stanzas
and the remaining part-  -




132                   Ode
The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight'
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth...III
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy
Shepherd-boy!
IV
Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were 'sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide, -




Ode                     133
Fresh flowers: while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!..
-But there's a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
V
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, aid whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
VI
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.
VIIBehold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!




I34                    Ode
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself-with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a: funeral;
And this hath now his-heart,
And unto this he frames his song::
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy-and prideThe little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his " humorous stage"
With all the Persons, down- to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation...':VIII
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul's immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among-the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,.
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!-.
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by; '
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the:inevitable yoke,:
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And cu~stom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life I




Ode                     135
IX....
0 joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blestDelight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from' us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature   -
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:
But for -those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;  -
Uphold us, cherish, and have-power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,:
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland, far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,.
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
-:........
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
-And let the young Lambs bound
As'to the tabor's sound!




136                    Ode
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
XI...
And 0, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I:tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day -:
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober- colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
(I803-6)
VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA-1 -O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus
My story may begin), O balmy time,
i Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Faithfully narrated, though
with the omission of many pathetic circumstances, from the -mouth of
a French lady, who had been an eye-and-ear-witness of all that was




Vaudracour and trJulia"


I37


In which a lbve-knoot- o a lady's 'broww-::
Is fairer- than the fairest star in heaven I;
To such inheritance of blessed fancy(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,:
Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne,
Was the Youth's birth-place. There he wooed a M'aid
Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit; -'::
With answering: vows. Plebeian was the stock,
Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock, '   -:
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,
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
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
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
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.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turned the meanest of her implements,
done and said. Many long years after, I was told that Dupligne was
then a monk in the Convent of La Trappe.- The following tale was
written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps
exclude it: The facts are true; no invention as to these has been
exercised, as hone" was needed.
F2




I38:


Vaudracour: and- Julia


Before his eyes, to price above all gold'; -  - iThe house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
Her chamber-window did surpass in glory
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
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 dissolvedVirtuous 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,
Was in his judgment tempted to decline
To perilous weakness, 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
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
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,
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 divinedWalks to and fro-watchings at every hour;
And the fair Captive, who, whene'er she. may,
Is busy at her casement as the swallow
Fluttm ring its pinions,- almost within reach,
About the pendent nest, did thus espy
Her Lover! -thence a stolen interview,
Accomplished under friendly shade of night.  '..... -~....5:......   ' ~  '..,7,.'':,;'....




Vaudracour- and Julia


I39


I pass the raptures of the pair;-such theme
Is, by innumerable poets, touched
In more delightful verse than skill of mine
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
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!
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)
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,
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,
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.
"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
Conceived a terror; and, by night or day,
Stirred nowhere without weapons, that full soon
Found dreadful provocation. for at night
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.
One the rash Youth's ungovernable hand
Slew, and as quickly to a second gave




140


Vaudracour and Julia


A perilous wound-he shuddered to behold -
The breathless corse; then peacefully resigned
His person to the law,-was lodged in prison:
And wore the fetters of a criminal.
Have you observed 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,
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
The perturbation that ensued;-ah, no!:
Desperate the Maid-the Youth is stained with blood;
Unmatchable on earth is their disquiet!
Yet as the troubled seed and'tortured bough
Is Man, subjected to despotic sway.
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 himHe clove to her who could not give him peaceYea, 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,'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? "
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
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
Disparted, pitiable lot I But here
A portion of the tale may well be left




Vaudracour and J ulia


-l4 I


In silence, though my nmemory could add..
Much how the Youth, in scanty space of time,
Was traversed from without; much, too, of thoughts
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 siffered-breaking down-in heart and mind I
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,
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,
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,
With ornaments-the prettiest, nature yields,
Or art can fashion, shall you deck our boy,
And feed his countenance with your own sweet looks
Till no one can resist him. —Now, even now,
I see hirm sporting on the sunny lawn;;
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.
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
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
Into the list of things that cannot be!.
Unwedded Julia,-terror-smitten, hears; -..




142


Vaudracour and Julia


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
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
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,
Or care, that what so tenderly he pressed,
Was a dependant on the obdurate heart
Of one who came to disunite their lives
For ever-sad alternative! preferred,
By the unbending Parents of the Maid,
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, departsWho 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,
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
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
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
Departed with his infant; and thus reached
His father's house, where to the innocent child




Vaudracour and        Julia        I43
Admittance was denied. The young man spake
No word of indignation or reproof,
But of his father begged, a last request,
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
Of four-and-twenty summers, he withdrew;
And thither took with him his motherless Babe,
And one domestic for their common needs,
An aged woman. 'It consoled him here
To attend upon the- orphan, and perform
Obsequious service to he 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:
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,
By chance of business, coming within reach
Of his retirement, to the forest lodge
Repaired, but only found the matron there,
Who told him that his- pains were thrown away,
For that her Master never uttered word
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 shrunkAnd, like a shadow, glided out of view.
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;
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 )
(i8o0)...




144         -:,  ' The. Triad-, -.;
THE TRIAD 1;...
SHOW me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime, -
Returned, to seek a. Consort.upon earth..,,r
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see.,
The brightest star of ages. yet to be,... -'i:
And I will mate and match. him blissfully  ''i;.
I will not. fetch a Naiad from a flood'.,
Pure as herself-(song lacks not mightier poswer.I
Nor leaf-crowned -Dryad from. a pathless.wood,'' -...:
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral.bower;.
Mere Mortals bodied forth in vision still,.,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill '.
The chaster coverts of a British hill.
Appear -obey my lyre's command... I
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand           '
For ye, thopgh -nt by. birth al'ied;.  ^..
Are Sisters in the bond of love;.....:
Nor shall the tongue of envious -pride.   ^ '
Presume those interweavings to reprove............
In you, which that fair progeny of Jove,..::,  i
Learned from the tuneful spheres that glide."  '. —;
In endless union, earth and sea above.........
-I sing in vain;-the pines have hushed their. wa-ving:
A peerless Youth expectant at my side,;
Breathless as they, with unabated craving:....;
Looks to the earth, and to the vacant air,;...  7
And, with- a wandering eye thatemso.chide, '
Asks of the clouds -what occupants they.hide  ~:.:;
But why solicit more than sight could bear;,.,
By casting on a moment all we. dare?...:....."
Invoke we those bright Beings one by one.-i.
And what was boldly promised, truly shall be done.
"Fear not a constraining measure!,. i
-Yielding to this gentle spell,.:. Lucida I from domes of pleasure,.
Or from cottage-sprinkled dell,...      '.
Come to regions solitary,..
Where the eagle builds her aery,."'
Above the hermit's long-forsaken cell 1i"..
1 Written at Rydal Mount. The Girls, Edith Southey, my daughter
Dora, and Sara Coleridge.




The — Triad:45
-She comes!-behold --:..-,
That Figure, like a ship with snow-white, sail!::-;
Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil,;.:;.
Upon her coming wait -;,
As pure a sunshine and as soft a gale,..
As e'er, on herbage covering earthly mould,. —: ':
Tempted the bird of Juno,to unfold..:,:
His richest splendour-when his veering gait.,;:
And every motion of his starry train,;...
Seem governed by a strain
Of music, audible to him alone:...
"O Lady,.worthy of earth's proudest throne!., -:,
Nor less,, by excellence of nature, fit  -,..
Beside an una mbitious hearth to sit:.
Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown;.
What living man could fear
The worst of Fortune's malice, wert Thou near,:
Humbling that lily-stem,: thy sceptre meek,
That its fair flowers may from his cheek,  v.:
Brush the too happy tear?,?: -:;;.;
— Queen,. and handmaid lowly:.,
Whose skill can speed the day' with lively cares,:;:And banish melancholy.;
By all that mind invents or hand prepares;;
0 Thou, against whose-lip, without its smile  j,; -.,
And in its silence even, no heart is: proof;-,
Whose goodness, sinking deep,:would reconcile: i.
The softest Nursling of a gorgeous palace. -
To the bare life beneath the hawthorn-roof
Of Sherwood's Archer, or in caves of Wallace-,,
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content
His soul with but; a glipse of heavenly day?
Who that hath loved thee, but would lay;
His strong hand on the wind, if it were bent-;
To take thee in thy-majesty away?,. -:
Pass onward (even the glancing deer-:.
Till we depart intrude not-here;)
That mossy slope, o'er which the woodbine throws
A canopy, is smoothed for thy repose I"  -
-Glad moment is it when the throng:
Of warblers in full concert strong
Strive, and not vainly strive,- to rout -
The lagging shower, and force coy Phoebus out, --
Met by the rainbow's form.divine,.  ^.....
Issuing from her cloudy shrine:.-;"




146


The - Triad


So may the thrillings of the lyre
Prevail to further our desire,
While to these shades a sister Nymph I call.:
"Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce,
Come, youngest of the lovely Three,
Submissive to the might of verse
And the dear voice of harmony,
By none more. deeply felt than Thee!"
-I sang; and lo! from pastimes virginal
She hastens to the tents
Of nature, and the lonely elements.
Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen;
But mark her glowing cheek, her vesture green!
And, as if wishful to disarm:
Or to repay the potent Charm,
She bears the stringed lute of old romance,
That cheered the trellised arbour's privacy,
And soothed war-wearied knights in raftered hall.
How vivid, yet how delicate, her glee!:
So tripped the Muse, inventress'of the dance;
So, truant in waste woods, the blithe Euphrosyne!
But the:ringlets of that head
Why are they ungarlanded?
Why bedeck her temples less'
Than the simplest- shepherdess?
Is it not a brow inviting
Choicest flowers that ever breathed,
Which the myrtle would delight in'      '
With Idalian rose-enwreathed?  -
But her humility is well content  -
With one wild floweret (call it not forlorn),
FLOWER OF THE WINDS,' beneath her bosom wornm —
Yet more for 1dve 'than' ornament. ' i     '
Open, ye thickets- ' let. her fly,
Swift as a Thracian Nymph o'er field and height!i-'
For She, to all but' those who love her, shy,
Would gladly vanish from a Stranger''ssight;:
Though where she is beloved and loves,
Light as the wheeling butterfly she moves;
Her happy spirit:as a bird is free,
That rifles blossoms on a ttee,
Turning them inside out with arch audacity.
Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays;. -




The Triad
A face o'er which a thousand shadows g6 1
-She stops-is fastened to that rivulet's side;
And there (while, with sedater mien, -.  '
O'er timid waters that have -scarcely left
Their birthplace in the rocky: cleft
She bends) at leisure may be seen
Features to old ideal grace allied,
Amid their smiles and dimples dignified —
Fit countenance for the soul of primal truth;
The bland composure of eternal youth!
What more changeful than the sea?
But over his great tides
Fidelity presides  -
And this light-hearted Maiden constant is as he,
High is her aim as heaven above,
And wide as ether her good-will-;
And, like the lowly reed, her love
Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill-::
Insight as keen as frosty star
Is to her charity no bar,
Nor interrupts her frolic graces
When she is, far from these wild places,
Encircled by familiar faces.
O the charm that manners draw,
Nature, from thy genuine law! -
If from what her hand would do,
Her voice would utter, aught ensue
Untoward or unfit;             -
She, in benign affections pure,;'.
In self-forgetfulness secure,
Sheds round the transient harm or vague mischance
A light unknown to tutored elegance::
Her's is not a cheek shame-stricken,
But her blushes are joy-flushes;
And the-fault (if fault it be)
Only ministers to quicken
Laughter-loving gaiety,
And kindle sportive witLeaving this Daughter of the mountains free
As if she knew that Oberon king of Faery
Had crossed her purpose with some quaint vagary,
And heard his viewless bands
Over their mirthful triumph clapping hands..
"Last of the Three, though eldest born,
Reveal thyself, like pensive Morn


147




148              i The Tiad
Touched by the skylark's earliest-inote-L:;r,; o;^:.:~..
Ere  humbhibigladness  e: afloat,: -:...... i:^  a i,:;,.........a
But whether in the -semblance drest.-:...:/;- '> {:..:.. A
Of Dawn-or Etire,; fir v.ision of t-helwest,.:.::'.:
Come with each anxious hope subdued:.. -;; -..::'
By woman's gentle fortitude,.: - -.::..:.:..-:Each grief, through meekness, settling into rest.-.-....
-Or I would -hail thee when some high-wrought page
Of a closed;volume lingering in thy hand-.-:;..::i ';.
Has raised thy 'Spirit to a peaceful stand,..... i
Among the glories of a::happier age.":.  -:: '.
Her brow hath opened on me —see it there,  -:..,;:
Brightening the umbrage of her hair;  -:
So gleams the;crescent, moon, that loves..;.
To be descried through shady groves,..; -  '.. ':
Tenderest bloom is on.her'cheek; —. I:.; -:
Wish not for a richer-streak;':.:.....
Nor dread the.e dep.th.-of meditative eye:-;. -  '..
But let thy love, upon that azure field...  '
Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield-..;:,
Its homage offered up in purity.:.,;.:-. -.:::.
What would'st thou- more? In sunny glade,.  i
Or under leaves of thickest shade,:.:.....:..::
Was such a stillness e'.er diffused- i.;:ij;..:.
Since earth grew calm while angels mused?...
Softly she treads, as if her'foot.;were loth.
To crush the mountain; dew-drops.-soon to melt-:..
On the flower's breast; as if she felt;...
That flowers themselves,.whate'er their hue, i.
With all their fragrance, all their glistening,..  '
Call-to:the heart. for inward listening ---:
And though for bridal wreaths and tokens true -
Welcomed wisely;.,though a growth:    i.....: -
Which the careless shepherd sleeps on,..:
As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on-.'
And without wrong are cropped the marble tomb::to strew.,The Charm is over; the mute Phantoms gone,
Nor will return-but droop not, favoured Youth;
The appari.tiona that before thee- shone.:  - -.;
Obeyed a summons covetous of trutbh..,'-...;
From: these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guideTo bowers in which thy fortune may be tried,
And one of the bright Three become thy happy Bride.
(1828):,-.:.: i




The?-Egyptian! Ma.id


149..;. THE EGYPTIAN 'MAID::'
C. ' - '. ':.,  O.."7..: '.;..'.... i '.
OR,.. THE ROMANCE OF THE WATER-LILY
WHILE Merlin paced the. Cornish sands,
Forth-lookirng toward the rocks of Scilly,
The pleased Enchanter was aware
Of a bright Ship that seemed to hang in air, -
Yet was she work of mortal hands,
And took from men her name-THrE WATER LILY..
Soft was the wind, that landward blew;
And, as-the Moon, o'er some dark hill ascendant,
Grows from a little edge of light
To a full orb, this Pinnace bright
Became, as nearer to the coast she drew,
More glorious, with spread sail and streaming pendant.
Upon this winged Shape so fair
Sage Merlin gazed with admiration:
Her lineaments, thought he, surpass
Aught that was ever shown in magic glass;
Was ever'built with patient care;
Or, at a touch, produced by halpiest transformation.
Now, though a Mechanist, whose skill
Shames the degenerate grasp of n odern science,
Grave Merlin (and belike the more
For practising occult and perilous lore)
Was subject to a freakish will
That sapped good thoughts, or scared them with defiance.
Provoked to envious spleen, he cast
An altered look upon the advancing Stranger
Whom he had hailed with joy, and cried,
"My Art shall help to tame her pride-"
Anon th.' breeze became a blast,
And the waves rose, and sky portended danger.
1 For the names and persons in the following poein, see the " History of
the renowned Prince Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table;" for
the rest the Author is answerable; only it may be proper to add, that
the Lotus, with the bust of the Go de-s app ar r-g to rise out of the
full-blown flower, was suggested by the beautifll work of ancient art,
once included among the Townley Marbles, and now in the British
Museum.,       -




I50


The Egyptian Maid


With thrilling word, and potent sign
Traced on.the beach, his work the Sorcerer urges;
The clouds in blacker clouds are lost;
Like spiteful Fiends that vanish, crossed
By Fiends of aspect more malign;
And the winds roused the Deep with fiercer scourges.
But worthy of the name she bore
Was this Sea-flower, this buoyant Galley;
Supreme in loveliness and grace
Of motion, whether in the embrace
Of trusty anchorage, or scudding o'er
The main flood roughened into hill and valley.
Behold, how wantonly she laves
Her sides, the Wizard's craft confounding;
Like something out of Ocean sprung
To be for ever fresh and young,
Breasts the sea-flashes, and huge waves
Top-gallant high, rebounding and rebounding!:
But Ocean under magic heaves,
And cannot spare the Thing he cherished:
Ah! what avails that she was fair,
Luminous, blithe, and debonair?
The storm has stripped her of her leaves;
The Lily floats no longer!-She hath perished.
Grieve for her,-she deserves no less;
So like, yet so unlike, a living Creature!
No heart had she, no busy brain;
Though loved, she could not love again;
Though pitied, feel her own distress;
Nor aught that troubles us, the fools of Nature.
Yet is there cause for gushing tears;
So richly was this Galley laden,
A fairer than herself she bore,
And, in her struggles, cast ashore;
A lovely One, who nothing hears
Of wind or wave-a meek and guileless Maiden.   -
Into a cave had Merlin fled
From mischief, caused by spells himself had muttered;,
And while, repentant all too late,
In moody posture there he sate,He heard a voice, and saw, with half-raised head,
A Visitant by whom these words were uttered;




The   Egyptian     Maid            151x
"On Christian service this frail Bark
Sailed" (hear me, Merlin!) " under high protection,
Though on her prow a sign of heathen power
Was carved-a Goddess with a-Lily flower,
The old Egyptian's emblematic mark
Of joy immortal and of pure affection.
Her course was for the British strand;
Her freight, it was a Damsel peerless;
God reigns above, and Spirits strong
May gather to avenge this wrong
Done to the Princess, and her Land
Which she in duty left, sad but not cheerless.
And to Caerleon's loftiest tower
Soon will the Knights of Arthur's Table
A cry of lamentation send;
And all will weep who there attend,
To grace that Stranger's bridal hour,
For whom the sea was made unnavigable.
Shame! should a Child of royal line
Die through the blindness of thy malice?"
Thus to the Necromancer spake
Nina, the Lady of the Lake,
A gentle Sorceress, and benign,
Who ne'er embittered any good man's chalice.
"What boots," continued she, "to mourn?
To expiate thy sin endeavour:
From the bleak isle where she is laid,
Fetched by our art, the Egyptian Maid
May yet to Arthur's court be borne
Cold as she is, ere life be fled for ever.
My pearly Boat, a shining Light,
That brought me down that sunless river,
Will bear me on from wave to wave,
And back with her to this sea-cave; —
Then, Merlin! for a rapid flight
Through air, to thee my Charge will I deliver.
The very 'swiftest of thy cars
Must, when my part is done, be ready;
Meanwhile, for further guidance, look
Into thy own prophetic book;
And, if that fail, consult the Stars
To learrithy course; farewell! be prompt and:steady."




1`52.?


The Egypti-an M.aidi


This scarcely spoklen, she again:;:  -.:i  '-Was:seated:in her gleaming shallop,;  '"-;'
That, o'er the yet-distempered Deep;  "  '  '
Pursued its way with bird-like sweep,
Or like a steed, without a rein,        ^:
Urged o'er the wilderness in sportive gallop.:.
Soon did the gentle Nina reach.. -     -
That Isle without a house or haven;
Landing, she found not what she sought,.
Nor saw of wreck or ruin aught
But a carved Lotus cast upon the.beach
By the fierce waves, a flower in marble graveni.
Sad relique, but how fair the while! -
For gently each from each retreating
With backward curve, the leaves revealed
The bosom half,. and half concealed,
Of a Divinity, that seemed to smile
On Nina, as she passed, with hopeful greeting.
No quest was hers of vague desire,
Of tortured hope and purpose shaken;
Following the margin of a bay,
She spied the lonely Castaway,
Unmarred, unstripped of her attire,
But with closed eyes,-of breath and. bloom forsaken.
Then Nina, stooping down, embraced,.
With tenderness and mild emotion,
The Damsel, in that trance embound; -
And, while she raised her from the ground,
And in the pearly shallop placed,
Sleep fell upon the..air, and stilled the ocean.
The turmoil hushed, celestial springs.
Of music opened, and there came a blending
Of fragrance, underived from earth,
With gleams that owed not to the sun their birth,
And that soft rustling of invisible wings
Which Angels make, on works of love descending.
And Nina heard a sweeter voice
Than if the Goddess of the flower had spoken:
"Thou hast achieved, fair Dame! what none
Less pure in spirit could have, done;
Go, in thy enterprise rejoice!:.
Air, earth, sea,: sky, and heaven,- success betoken." -"




The Egyptian Maid                 153
So cheered, she left that Island bleak,
A bare rock of the Scilly cluster;
And, as they traversed the smooth brine,
The self-illumined Brigantine
Shed, on the Slumberer's cold wan cheek
And pallid brow, a melancholy lustre.
Fleet was their course, and when they came
To the dim cavern, whence the river
Issued into the salt-sea flood,
Merlin, as fixed in thought he stood,
Was thus accosted by the Dame;
"Behold to thee my Charge I now deliver I
But where attends thy chariot-where? "Quoth Merlin, "Even as I was bidden,
So have I done; as trusty as thy barge
My vehicle shall prove -0: precious Charge!
If this be sleep, how soft! if death, how fair!
Much have my books disclosed, but the end is hidden."
He spake; and gliding into view
Forth from the grotto's dimmest chamber
Came two mute Swans, whose plumes of dusky white
Changed, as the pair approached the light,
Drawing an ebon car, their hue
(Like clouds of sunset) into lucid amber.
Once more did gentle Nina lift
The Princess, passive to all changes:
The car received her:-then up-went
Into the ethereal element
The Birds with progress smooth and swift
As thought, when through bright regions memory ranges.
Sage Merlin; at the Slumberer's side, -
Instructs the Swans their way to measure;
And soon Caerleon's towers appeared,
And notes of minstrelsy were heard
From rich pavilions spreading wide,
For some high day of long-expected pleasure.
Awe-stricken stood both Knights and Dames
Ere on firm ground the car alighted;
Eftsoons astonishment was past,
For in that face they saw the last
Last lingering look of clay, that tames
All pride; by which all happiness is blighted.




154


The Egyptian Maid


Said Merlin, -"Mighty King, fair Lords,
Away with feast and tilt and.tourney I
Ye saw, throughout this royal ' —ouse,
Ye heard, a rocking marvellous
Of turrets, and a'clash of swords
Self-shaken, as I closed my airy journey.
Lo! by a destiny well known
To mortals, joy is turned to sorrow;
This is the wished-for Bride, the Maid
Of Egypt, from a rock conveyed
Where she by shipwreck had'been thrown,
Ill sight! but grief may vanish ere the morrow.^
"Though vast thy power, thy words are weak,'
Exclaimed the King, "a mockery hateful;
Dutiful Child, her lot how hard!
Is this her piety's reward? -
Those watery locks, that bloodless cheek!
0 winds without remorse 0' shore ungrateful!
Rich robes are fretted by the moth;
Towers, temples, fall by stroke of thunder;
Will that, or'deeper thoughts, abate
A Father's sorrow for her fate?
'He will repent him:of his troth; ' '':
His brain will burn, his stout'heart split asunder.
Alas! and I have caused this woe;
For, when my prowess from invading Neighbours
Had freed his Realm, he plighted word
-That he would turn to Christ our Lord,
And his dear Daughter on a Knight bestow
Whom I-should choose for love and matchless labours.
Her birth was heathen; but a fence
Of holy Angels round her hovered:
A Lady added to my court
So fair, of such divine report
And worship, seemed a recompence
For fifty kingdoms by my sword recovered.  ' '
Ask not for whom, 0 Champions true! -.;
She was reserved by me her life's betrayer;
She who was meant to be a'bride
Is now a corse: then put aside'
Vain thoughts, and speed ye, with observance due
Of Christian rites, in Christian ground to lay her.".




The Egyptian Maid


155 -

"The tomb," said Merlin, " may not close
Upon her yet, earth hide her beauty;
Not froward to thy sovereign will
Esteem me, Liege! if I, whose skill
Wafted her hither, interpose
To check this pious haste of erring duty.
My books command me to lay bare
The secret thou art bent on keeping:
Here must a high attest be given,
What Bridegroom was for her ordained by Heaven.
And in my glass significants there are
Of things that may to gladness turn this weeping.
For this, approaching, One by One,
Thy Knights must touch the cold hand of the Virgin';
So, for the favoured One, the Flower may bloom
Once more: but, if unchangeable her doom,
If life departed be for ever gone,
Some blest assurance, from this cloud emerging,
May teach him to bewail his loss;
Not with a grief that, like a vapour, rises
And melts; but grief devout that shall endure,
And a perpetual growth secure
Of purposes which no false thought shall cross,
A harvest of high hopes and noble enterprises."
"So be it," said the King;-" anon,
Here, where the Princess lies, begin the trial;
Knights each in order as ye stand
-Step forth."-To touch the pallid hand
Sir Agravaine advanced; no sign he won
From Heaven or earth;-Sir Kaye had like denial.
Abashed, Sir Dinas turned away;
Even for Sir Percival was no disclosure;
Though he, devoutest of all Champions, ere
He reached that ebon car, the bier
Whereon diffused like snow the Damsel lay,
Full thrice had crossed himself in meek composure.
Imagine (but ye Saints! who can?)
How in still air the balance trembled- -
The wishes, peradventure the despites
That overcame some not unen(trous Knights;
And all the thoughts that lengthened out a span
Of time to Lords and Ladies thus assembled.:




156          The Egyptian Maid
What patient confidence was here!
And there how many bosoms panted! - -
While drawing toward the car Sir Gawaine, mailed
For tournament, his beaver'vailed,
And softly touched; but, to his princely cheer
And high expectancy, no sign was granted.
Next, disencumbered of his harp,
Sir Tristram, dear to thousands as a brother,
Came to the proof, nor grieved that there ensued
No change;-the fair Izonda he had wooed
With love too true, a love with pangs too sharp,
From hope too distant, not to dread another.
Not so Sir Launcelot;-from Heaven's grace
A sign he craved, tired slave of vain contrition;
The royal Guinever looked passing glad
When his touch failed -Next came Sir Galahad;
He paused, and stood entranced by that still face
Whose features he had seen in noontide vision.
For late, as near a murmuring stream
He rested 'mid an arbour green and shady,
Nina, the good Enchantress, shed
A light around his mossy bed;
And, at her call, a waking dream
Prefigured to his sense the Egyptian Lady.
Now, while his bright-haired front he bowed,. '
And stood, far-keined by mantle furred with ermine,
As o'er the insensate Body hung
The enrapt, the beautiful, the young,
Belief sank deep into the crowd
That he the solemn issue would determine.
Nor deem it strange; the Youth had worn
That very mantle on a day of glory,
The day when he achieved that matchless feat,
The marvel of the PERILOUS SEAT,
Which whosoe'er ap!proached of strength was shorn,
Though King or Knight the most renowned in story.
He touched with hesitating hand —
And lo! those Birds, far-famed through Love's
dominions,




The   Egyptian     Maid           I57
The Swans, in triumph-clap their wings;
And their necks play, involved in rings,
Like sinless snakes in Eden's happy land;"Mine is she," cried the Knight;-again they clapped
their pinions. -.;
"Mine was she-mine she is, though dead,
And to her name my soul shall cleave in sorrow;"
Whereat, a tender twilight streak.
Of colour dawned upon the Damsel's cheek;
And her lips, quickening with uncertain red,
Seemed from each other a faint warmth to borrow.
Deep was the awe, the rapture high,
Of love emboldened, hope with dread entwining,
When, to the mouth, relenting Death
Allowed a soft and flower-like breath,
Precursor to a timid sigh,
To lifted eyelids, and a doubtful shining.
In silence did King Arthur gaze
Upon the signs that pass away or tarry;
In silence watched the gentle strife
Of Nature leading back to life;
Then eased his soul at length by praise
Of God, and Heaven's pure Queen-the blissful Mary.
Then said he, " Take her to thy heart,
Sir Galahad! a treasure, that God giveth,
Bound by indissoluble ties to thee
Through mortal change and immortality;
Be happy and unenvied, thou who art
A goodly 'Knight that hath no peer that liveth!"
Not long the Nuptials were delayed;
And sage tradition still rehearses
The pomp, the glory of that hour
When toward the altar from her bower
King Arthur led the Egyptian Maid,
And Angels carolled these far-echoed verses; —
Who shrinks not from alliance
Of evil with good Powers,
To God proclaims defiance,
And mocks whom he adores.
A Ship to Christ devoted
From the Land of Nile did go;
Alas! the bright Ship floated,
An Idol at her prow.




I58        The   Russian     Fugitive
By magic domination,
The Heaven-permitted vent
Of purblind mortal passion,
Was wrought her punishment.
The Flower the Form within it,
What served they in her need?
Her port she could not win it,
Nor from mishap be freed.
The tempest overcame her,
And she was seen no more;
But gently, gently blame herShe cast a Pearl ashore.
The Maid to Jesu hearkened,
And kept to him her faith,:
Till sense in death was darkened,
Or sleep akin to death.
But Angels round her pillow
Kept watch, a viewless band;
And, billow favouring billow,
She reached the destined strand.
Blest Pair! whate'er befall you,. Your faith in Him approve
Who from frail earth can call you
To bowers of endless love!'..
(1830).  '.. -..  -  ^.,.-THE.RUSSIAN FUGITIVE
PART I. -
ENOUGH of rose-bud lips, and eyes
Like harebells bathed in dew,
Of cheek that. with carnation vies,
And:veins of violet hue;.
Earth wants not beauty that may scorn
A likening to frail flowers;
Yea, to the stars, if they were born'
For seasons and for hours.
Through Moscow's gates, with gold unbared,
Stepped, One at dead of night,.
Whom such high beauty could not guard
From meditated blight;-:: I:;




The Russian       Fugitive
By stealth she passed, and fled as fast
As doth the hunted fawn,
Nor stopped, till in the dappling east
Appeared unwelcome dawn,
Seven days she lurked in brake and field,
Seven nights her course renewed,
Sustained by what her scrip might yield,
Or berries of the wood;
At length, in darkness travelling on,
When lowly doors were shut,
The haven of her hope she won,
Her Foster-mother's hut.
"To put your love to dangerous proof
I come," said she, "from far;
For I have left my Father's roof,
In terror of the Czar."
No answer did the Matron give,
No second look she cast,
But hung upon the Fugitive,.
Embracing and embraced.
She led the Lady to a seatBeside the glimmering fire,
Bathed duteously her wayworn feet,
Prevented each desire:The cricket chirped, the house-dog dozed,
And on that simple bed,
Where she in childhood had reposed,
Now rests her weary head.
When she, whose couch had been the sod,
Whose curtain, pine or thorn,
Had breathed a sigh of thanks to God,
Who comforts the forlorn;
While over her the Matron bent
Sleep sealed her eyes, and stole
Feeling from limbs with travel spent,
And trouble from the soul.
Refreshed, the Wanderer rose at morn,
And soon again Was dig-ht
In those unworthy vestments worn.
Through long and perilous flight;
And "O beloved: Nurse," she said,:.:
"My thanks with silent tears- -


I59




I6o


The Russian       Fugitive
Have unto Heaven and You been paid:
Now listen to my fears 1
Have you forgot "-and here she smiled —
"TThe babbling flatteries
You lavished on me when a child
Disporting round your knees?
I was your lambkin, and your:bird,
Your star, your gem, your flower;
Light words, that were more lightly heard
In many a cloudless hour!
The blossom you so fondly praised
Is come to bitter fruit;
A mighty One upon me gazed;
I spurned his lawless suit,
And must be hidden from his wrath:
You, Foster-father dear,
Will guide me in my forward path;
I may not tarry here!
I cannot bring to utter woe
Your proved fidelity.""Dear Child, sweet Mistress, say not so!
For you we both would die."
"Nay, nay, I come with semblance- feigned
And cheek embrowned by art;
Yet, being inwardly unstained,
With courage will depart."
"But whither would you, could you, flee?
A poor Man's counsel take;
The Holy Virgin gives to me
A thought for your dear sake;
Rest, shielded by our Lady's grace,
And soon shall you be led
Forth to a safe abiding-place,
Where never foot doth tread."
PART   1
THE dwelling of this faithful pair
In a straggling village stood,
For One who breathed unquiet airA dangerous neighbourhood;




The Russian       Fugitive
But wide around lay forest ground
With thickets rough and blind;
And pine-trees made a heavy shade
Impervious to the wind.
And there, sequestered from the sight,
Was spread a treacherous swamp,
On which the noonday sun shed light
As from a lonely lamp;
And midway in the unsafe morass,
A single Island rose
Of firm dry ground, with healthful grass
Adorned, and shady boughs.
The Woodman knew, for such the craft
This Russian vassal plied,
That never fowler's gun, nor shaft
Of archer, there was tried;
A sanctuary seemed the spot
From all intrusion free;
And there he planned an artful Cot
For perfect secrecy.
With earnest pains unchecked by dread
Of Power's far-stretching hand,
The bold good Man his labour sped
At nature's pure command;
Heart-soothed, and busy as a wren,
While, in a hollow nook,
She moulds her sight-eluding den
Above a murmuring brook.
His task accomplished to his mind,
The twain ere break of day
Creep forth, and through the forest wind
Their solitary way;
Few words they speak, nor dare to slack
Their pace from mile to mile,
Till they have crossed the quaking marsh
And reached the lonely Isle.
The sun above the pine-trees showed
A bright and cheerful face;
And Ina looked for her abode,
The promised hiding-place;
She sought in vain, the Woodman smiled;
No threshold could be seen,


G




162


The    Russian     Fugitive
Nor roof, nor window;-all seemed wild
As it had ever been. ^.
At-vancdng, you might guess an hour,
The fcont w-s sl- sauch nice care
Is masked, " if house it be or bower,"
But in they entered are;
As shaggy as were wall and roof
With branches intertwined,
So smooth was all. within, airproof,
And delicately lined:  -.:
And hearth was there, and maple dish,
And cups in seemly rows,
And couch-all ready to a:wish
For nurture or repose;
And Heaven doth to her virtue. grant
That here she may abide
In solitude, with every want-:By cautious love supplied.
No queen, before a shouting crowd,
Led on in bridal state,
E'er struggled with a heart so: proud,
Entering her palace gate:;
Rejoiced to bid the; world farewell,
No saintly anchoress           -
E'er took possession of-her cell
With deeper thankfulness. -
"Father of all, upon thy care
And mercy am I thrown;
Be thou my safeguard! "'-such her prayer
When she was left alone,
Kneeling amid the wilderness
When joy had passed away,And smiles, fond efforts of distress
To hide what they betray!
The prayer is heard, the Saints have seen,
Diffused through form and face
Resolves devotedly serene;
That monumental grace
Of Faith, which doth all passions tame
That Reason should control;
And, shows in the untrembling frame
A statue of the -soul.




The Russian Fugitive


163


PART III
'TIs sung in ancient minstrelsy
That Phoebus wont to wear
The leaves of any pleasant tree
Around his golden hair;
Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit
Of his imperious love,
At her own prayer transformed, took root,
A laurel in the grove.
Then did the Penitent adorn
His brow with laurel green;
And 'mid his bright locks never shorn
No meaner leaf was seen;
And poets sage, through every age,
About their temples wound
The bay; and conquerors thanked the Gods,
With laurel chaplets crowned.
Into the mists of fabling Time
So far runs back the praise
Of Beauty, that disdains to climb
Along forbidden ways;
That scorns temptation; power defies
Where mutual love is not;
And to the tomb for rescue flies
When life would be a blot.
To this fair Votaress, a fate
More mild doth Heaven ordain
Upon her Island desolate;
And words, not breathed in vain,
Might tell what intercourse she found,
Her silence to endear;
What birds she tamed, what flowers the ground
Sent forth her peace to cheer.
To one mute Presence, above all,
Her soothed affections clung,
A picture on the cabin wall
By Russian usage hungThe Mother-maid, whose countenance bright
With love abridged the day;
And, communed with by taper light,
Chased spectral fears away.




164


The Russian Fugitive


And oft, as either Guardian came,
The joy in that retreat
Might any common friendship shame,
So high their hearts would beat;
And to the lone Recluse, whate'er
They brought, each visiting
Was like the crowding of the year
With a new burst of spring.
But, when she of her Parents thought,
The pang was hard to bear;
And, if with all things not enwrought,
That trouble still is near.
Before her flight she had not dared
Their constancy to prove,
Too much the heroic Daughter feared
The weakness of their love.
Dark is the past to them, and dark
The future still must be,
Till pitying Saints conduct her bark
Into a safer seaOr gentle Nature close her eyes,
And set her Spirit free
From the altar of this sacrifice,
In vestal purity.
Yet, when above the forest-glooms
The white swans southward passed,
High as the pitch of their swift plumesHer fancy rode the blast;
And bore her toward the fields of France,
Her Father's native land,
To mingle in the rustic dance,
The happiest of the band!
Of those beloved fields she oft
Had heard her Father tell
In phrase that now with echoes soft
Haunted her lonely cell;
She saw the hereditary bowers,
She heard the ancestral stream;
The Kremlin and its haughty towers
Forgotten like a dream!




The Russian Fugitive


i65


PART IV
THE ever-changing Moon had traced
Twelve times her monthly round,
When through the unfrequented Waste
Was heard a startling sound;
A shout thrice sent from one who chased
At speed a wounded deer,
Bounding through branches interlaced,
And where the wood was clear.
The fainting creature took the marsh,
And toward the Island fled,
While plovers screamed with tumult harsh
Above his antlered head;
This, Ina saw; and, pale with fear,
Shrunk to her citadel;
The desperate deer rushed on, and near
The tangled covert fell.
Across the marsh, the game in view,
The Hunter followed fast,
Nor paused, till o'er the stag he blew
A death-proclaiming blast;
Then, resting on her upright mind,
Came forth the Maid-" In me
Behold," she said, "a stricken Hind
Pursued by destiny!
From your deportment, Sir! I deem
That you have worn a sword,
And will not hold in light esteem
A suffering woman's word;
There is my covert, there perchance
I might have lain concealed,
My fortunes hid, my countenance
Not even to you revealed.
Tears might be shed, and I might pray,
Crouching and terrified,
That what has been unveiled to-day,
You would in mystery hide;
But I will not defile with dust
The knee that bends to adore
The God in heaven;-attend, be just;
This ask I, and no more i




x66


The Russian Fugitive


I speak not of the winter's cold,
For summer's heat exchanged,
While I have lodged in this rough hold,
From social life estranged;
Nor yet of trouble and alarms:
High Heaven is my defence;
And every season has soft arms
For injured Innocence.
From Moscow to the Wilderness
It was my choice to come,
Lest virtue should be harbourless,
And honour want a home;
And happy were I, if the Czar
Retain his lawless will,
To end life here like this poor deer,
Or a lamb on a green hill."
"Are you the Maid," the Stranger cried,
"From Gallic parents sprung, -
Whose vanishing was rumoured wide,
Sad theme for every tongue;
Who foiled an Emperor's eager quest?
You, Lady, forced to wear
These rude habiliments, and rest
Your head in this dark lair!"
But wonder, pity, soon were quelled;
And in her face and mien
The soul's pure brightness he beheld
Without a veil between:
He loved, he hoped,-a holy flame
Kindled 'mid rapturous tears;
The passion of a moment came
As on the wings of years.
"Such bounty is no gift of chance,"
Exclaimed he; "righteous Heaven,
Preparing your deliverance,
To me the charge hath given.
The Czar full oft in words and deeds
Is stormy and self-willed;
But, when the Lady Catherine pleads,
His violence is stilled.




The   Russian     Fugitive
Leave open to my wish the course,
And I to her will go;
From that humane and heavenly source,
Good, only good, can flow."
Faint sanction given, the Cavalier
Was eager to depart,
Though question followed question, dear
To the Maiden's filial heart.
Light was his step,-his hopes, more light,Kept pace with his desires;
And the fifth morning gave him sight
Of Moscow's glittering spires.
He sued:-heart-smitten by the wrong,
To the lorn Fugitive
The Emperor sent a pledge as strong
As sovereign power could give.
0 more than mighty change  If e'er
Amazement rose to pain,
And joy's excess produced a fear
Of something void and vain;
'Twas when the Parents, who had mourned
So long the lost as dead,
Beheld their only Child returned,
The household floor to tread.
Soon gratitude gave way to love
Within the Maiden's breast;
Delivered and Deliverer move
In bridal garments drest;
Meek Catherine had her own reward;
The Czar bestowed a dower;
And universal Moscow shared
The triumph of that hour.
Flowers strewed the ground; the nuptial feast
Was held with costly state;
And there, 'mid many a noble guest,
The Foster-parents sate;
Encouraged by the imperial eye,
They shrank not into shade;
Great was their bliss, the honour high
---  To them and nature paid!
(830)


I67




I68


The Waggoner


THE WAGGONER
In Cairo's crowded streets
The impatient Merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
THOMSON.
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
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,
Each, in his station twinkling not,
Seems changed into a pallid spot.
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.
Hush, there is some one on the stir!
'Tis Benjamin the Waggoner;
Who long hath trod this toilsome way,
Companion of the night and day.
That far-off tinkling's drowsy cheer,
Mixed with a faint yet grating sound
In a moment lost and found,
The Wain announces-by whose side
Along the banks of Rydal Mere
He paces on, a trusty Guide,Listen! you can scarcely hear!
Hither he his course is bending;1 Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The characters and story from
fact. For the dedicatory letter to Charles Lamb, see Wordsworth's -
Prose Works in present edition.




The Waggoner


I69


Now he leaves the lower ground,
And up the craggy hill ascending
Many a stop and stay he makes,
Many a breathing-fit he takes;Steep the way and wearisome,
Yet all the while his whip is dumb!
The Horses have worked with right good-will,
And so have gained the top of the hill;
He was patient, they were strong,
And now they smoothly glide along,
Recovering breath, and pleased to win
The praises of mild Benjamin.
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
Be one of much infirmity;
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;
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;
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;
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!
Beyond his wish he walks secure;
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;
If he resist those casement panes,
And that bright gleam which thence will fall
Upon his Leaders' bells and manes,
G2




170


The Waggoner
Inviting him with cheerful lure:
For still, though all be dark elsewhere,
Some shining notice will be there,
Of open house and ready fare.
The place to Benjamin right well
Is known, and by as strong a spell
As used to be that sign of love
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,
For it was painted by the Host;
His own conceit the figure planned,
'Twas coloured all by his own hand;
And that frail Child of thirsty clay,
Of whom I sing this rustic lay,
Could tell with self-dissatisfaction
Quaint stories of the bird's attraction!1
Well! that-is past-and in despite
Of open door and shining light.
And now the conqueror essays
The long ascent of Dunmail-raise;
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;
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-nightAnd with proud cause my heart is light:
I trespassed lately worse than everBut Heaven has blest a good endeavour;
And, to my soul's content, I find
The evil One is left behind.
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;
It knows how ye were vexed and strained,


1 This rude piece of self-taught art (such is the progress of refinement) -
has been supplanted by a professional production.




The Waggoner
And forced unworthy stripes to bear,
When trusted to another's care.
Here was it-on this rugged slope,
Which now ye climb with heart and hope,
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:
As chance would have it, passing by
I saw you in that jeopardy:
A word from me was like a charm;
Ye pulled together with one mind;
And your huge burthen, safe from harm,
Moved like a vessel in the wind!
-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;
Though Rydal-heights and Dunmail-raise,
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!
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,
Was busily employed as he.
The thunder had begun to growlHe heard not, too intent of soul;
The air was now without a breathHe marked not that 'twas still as death.
But soon large rain-drops on his head
Fell with the weight of drops of lead;He starts-and takes, at the admonition,
A sage survey of his condition.
The road is black before his eyes,
Glimmering faintly where it lies;
Black is the sky-and every hill,
Up to the sky, is blacker stillSky, hill, and dale, one dismal room,
Hung round and overhung with gloom;
Save that above a single height


i7I




172             The Waggoner
Is to be seen a lurid light,
Above Helm-crag 1-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!
The ASTROLOGER was not unseen
By solitary Benjamin;
But total darkness came anon,
And he and everything was gone:
And suddenly a ruffling breeze,
(That would have rocked the sounding trees
Had aught of sylvan growth been there)
Swept through the Hollow long and bare:
The rain rushed down-the road was battered,
As with the force of billows shattered;
The horses are dismayed, nor know
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;
Astounded in the mountain gap
With thunder-peals, clap after clap,
Close-treading on the silent flashesAnd somewhere, as he thinks, by crashes
Among the rocks; with weight of rain,
And sullen motions long and slow,
That to a dreary distance goTill, breaking in upon the dying strain,
A rending o'er his head begins the fray again.
Meanwhile, uncertain what to do,
And oftentimes compelled to halt,
The horses cautiously pursue
Their way, without mishap or fault;
1 A mountain of Grasmere, the broken summit of which presents two
figures, full as distinctly shaped as that of the famous Cobbler near
Arroquhar in Scotland.




The Waggoner
And now have reached that pile of stones,
Heaped over brave King Dunmail's bones;
His 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,
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!"
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,
The Woman urged her supplication,
In rueful words, with sobs betweenThe voice of tears that fell unseen;
There came a flash-a startling glare,
And all Seat-Sandal was laid bare!
'Tis not a time for nice suggestion,
And Benjamin, without a question,
Taking her for some way-worn rover,
Said, " Mount, and get you under cover!"
Another voice, in tone as hoarse
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!"
" 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
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!
We've had in half an hour or less
A twelvemonth's terror and distress!"
Then Benjamin entreats the Man


I73




74


The Waggoner
Would mount, too, quickly as he can:
The Sailor-Sailor now no more,
But such he had been heretoforeTo courteous Benjamin replied,
"Go you your way, and mind not me;
For I must have, whate'er betide,
My Ass and fifty things beside,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:
For when, at closing-in of day,
The family had come that way,
Green pasture and the soft warm air
Tempted them to settle there.Green is the grass for beast to graze,
Around the stones of Dunmail-raise 1
The Sailor gathers up his bed,
Takes down the canvas overhead;
And, after farewell to the place,
A parting word-though not of grace,
Pursues, with Ass and all his store,,
The way the Waggon went before.
j.CANTO SECOND
IF Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,
Had, with its belfry's humble stock,
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 HelvellynIts 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)
Proceeding with a mind at ease;
While the old Familiar of the seas,
Intent to use his utmost haste,
Gained ground upon the Waggon fast,
And gives another lusty cheer;
For spite of rumbling of the wheels,




The Waggoner


I75


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.As Benjamin is now aware,
Who, to his inward thoughts confined,
Had almost reached the festive door,
When, startled by the Sailor's roar,
He hears a sound and sees a light,
And in a moment calls to mind
That 'tis the village MERRY-NIGHT!1
Although before in no dejection,
At this insidious recollection
His heart with sudden joy is filled,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
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
That blew us hither!-let him dance,
Who can or will!-my honest soul,
Our treat shall be a friendly bowl "
He draws him to the door-" Come in,
Come, come," cries he to Benjamin!
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!"
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!
What store of cakes in every lap!
What thumping-stumping-overhead!
The thunder had not been more busy:
1 A term well known in the North of England, and applied to rural
Festivals where young persons meet in the evening for the purpose of
dancing.




176


The Waggoner
With such a stir you would have said,
This little place may well be dizzy!
'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,
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:
To seek for thoughts of a gloomy cast,
If such the bright amends at last.
Now should you say I judge amiss,
The CHERRY TREE shows proof of this;
For soon of all the happy there,
Our Travellers are the happiest pair;
All care with Benjamin is goneA Cxesar past the Rubicon!
He thinks not of his long, long strife;The Sailor, Man by nature gay,
Hath no resolves to throw away;
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,
Under cover,
Terror over,
Sleeping by her sleeping Baby.
With bowl that sped from hand to hand,
The gladdest of the gladsome band,
Amid their own delight and fun,
They hear-when every dance is done,
When every whirling bout is o'erThe fiddle's squeak 1-that call to bliss,
Ever followed by a kiss;
They envy not the happy lot,
But enjoy their own the more!
While thus our jocund Travellers fare,
Up springs the Sailor from his chairLimps (for I might have told before
That he was lame) across the floor

1 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.




The Waggoner


'77


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.
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 isStand 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!
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,
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
On which brave Admiral Nelson stoodA sight that would have roused your blood I
-One eye he had, which, bright as ten,
Burned like a fire among his men;
Let this be land, and that be sea,
Here lay the French-and thus came we!'
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;
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
And terror of that marvellous 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!"
When Benjamin had seized the bowl,




78


The Waggoner
The mastiff, from beneath the waggon,
Where he lay, watchful as a dragon,
Rattled his chain;-'twas all in vain,
For Benjamin, triumphant soul!
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:
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,
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,
The whip's loud notice from the door,
That they were free to move once more,
You think, those doings must have bred
In them disheartening doubts and dread;
No, not a horse of all the eight,
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,
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;
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,
The triumph of your late devotion,
Can aught on earth impede delight,
Still mounting to a higher height;




The Waggoner                  179
And higher still-a greedy flight!
Can any low-born care pursue her,
Can any mortal clog come to her?
No notion have they-not a thought,
That is from joyless regions brought!
And, while they coast the silent lake,
Their inspiration I partake;
Share their empyreal spirits-yea,
With their enraptured vision, seeO fancy- what a jubilee!
What shifting pictures-clad in gleams
Of colour bright as feverish dreams I
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;And then, what kindness in their hearts!
What tears of rapture, what vow-making,
Profound entreaties, and hand-shaking i
What solemn, vacant, interlacing,
As if they'd fall asleep embracing!
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,
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;
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,
To have such company so near!
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
The VANGUARD, following close behind,
Sails spread, as if to catch the wind!
"Thy wife and child are snug and warm,




i8o


The Waggoner


Thy ship will travel without harm;
I like," said Benjamin, "her shape and stature:
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 as we go,
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 canvas spread.
I hate a boaster; but to thee
Will say't, who know'st both land and sea,
The unluckiest hulk that stems the brine
Is hardly worse beset than mine,
When cross-winds on her quarter beat;
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!
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 foulBut 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,
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;
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!
'Tis worse than any funeral bell;
As sure as I've the gift of sight,
We shall be meeting ghosts to-night 1"




The Waggoner


i8i


-Said Benjamin, "This whip shall lay
A thousand, if they cross our way.
I know that Wanton's noisy station,
I know him and his occupation;
The jolly bird hath learned his cheer
Upon the banks of Windermere;
Where a tribe of them make merry,
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 —
That is the worst of his employment:
He's at the top of his enjoyment!"
This explanation stilled the alarm,
Cured the foreboder like a charm;
This, and the manner, and the voice,
Summoned the Sailor to rejoice;
His heart is up-he fears no evil
From life or death, from man or devil;
He wheels-and, making many stops,
Brandished his crutch against the mountain tops;
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
In bloodiest battle since the days of Mars 1
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;
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
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;
To quit the slow-paced waggon's side,




182


The Waggoner
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 stormGlimmering through the twilight pale;
And Ghimmer-crag,l his tall twin brother,
Each peering forth to meet the other:And, while she roves through St. John's Vale,
Along the smooth unpathwayed plain,
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,
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
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;
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,
By trees and lingering twilight made 1
There, at Blencathara's rugged feet,
Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
To noble Clifford; from annoy
Concealed the persecuted boy,
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,
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
1 The crag of the ewe lamb.




The Waggoner                   183
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)
The stately waggon is ascending,
With faithful Benjamin attending,
Apparent now beside his teamNow lost amid a glittering steam:
And with him goes his Sailor-friend,
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.
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
Reproved his soarings of the night,
In strains of rapture pure and holy
Upbraided his distempered folly.
Drooping is he, his step is dull;
But the horses stretch and pull;
With increasing vigour climb,
Eager to repair lost time;
Whether, by their own desert,
Knowing what cause there is for shame,
They are labouring to avert
As much as may be of the blame,
Which, they foresee, must soon alight
Upon his head, whom, in despite
Of all his failings, they love best;
Whether for him they are distrest,
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,
Last and foremost, every horse
To the utmost of his force!
And the smoke and respiration,
Rising like an exhalation,
Blend with the mist-a moving shroud




i84             The Waggoner
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
Through accidents of peace or war,
In a perilous moment threw
Around the object of his care
Veil of such celestial hue;
Interposed so bright a screenHim 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?
No-sad progress of my story!
Benjamin, this outward glory
Cannot shield thee from thy Master,
Who from Keswick has pricked forth,
Sour and surly as the north;
And, in fear of some disaster,
Comes to give what help he may,
And to hear what thou canst say;
If, as needs he must forebode,
Thou hast been loitering on the road!
His fears, his doubts, may now take flightThe wished-for object is in sight;
Yet, trust the Muse, it rather hath
Stirred him up to livelier wrath;
Which he stifles, moody man!
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;
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,
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;




The Waggoner


I85


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,
Or what need of explanation,
Parley or interrogation?
For the Master sees, alas!
That unhappy Figure near him,
Limping o'er the dewy grass,
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:
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,
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,
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;
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;
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
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,




I86


The WaggonerTwo 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,
Though timid scruples checked me long;
They checked mne-and I left the theme
Untouched-in-spite of many a- gleam
Of fancy which thereon was shed,
Like pleasant sunbeams shifting still
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,
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,
Returning, like a ghost unlaid,
Until the debt I owe be paid.
Forgive me, then; for I had been
On friendly terms with this Machine:
In him, while he was wont to trace
Our roads, through many a long year's space,
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.
-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,




The White Doe of Rylstone                 187
Stillness, solitude, and calm,
While yet the valley-is arrayed,
On this side with a sober shade;
On that is prodigally brightCrag, lawn, and wood-with rosy light.
-But most of all, thou Lordly Wain I
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;
Unworthy successors of thee,
Come straggling through the wind and rain!
And oft, as they pass slowly on,
Beneath my windows, one by one,
See, perched upon the naked height,
The summit of a cumbrous freight;
A single traveller-and there
Another; then perhaps a pairThe lame, the sickly, and the old;
Mien, women, heartless with the cold;
And babes in wet and starveling plight:
Which once, 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,
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!
(I805)
THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE;
OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS1
DEDICATION
IN trellised shed with clustering roses gay,
And, MARY! oft beside our blazing fire,
When years of wedded life were as a day
Whose current answers to the heart's desire,
During the Summer of 1807 I visited, for the first time, the
-15"auiiful country that surrounds Bolton Priory in Yorkshire; and
the Poem of "The White Doe," founded upon a' Tradition connected
with that place, was composed at the close of the same year.




I88     The White Doe of Rylstone
Did we together read in Spenser's Lay
How Una, sad of soul-in sad attire,
The gentle Una, of celestial birth,
To seek her Knight went wandering o'er the earth.
Ah, then, Beloved! pleasing was the smart,
And the tear precious in compassion shed
For Her, who, pierced by sorrow's thrilling dart,
Did meekly bear the pang unmerited;
Meek as that emblem of her lowly heart
The milk-white Lamb which in a line she led,And faithful, loyal in her innocence,
Like the brave Lion slain in her defence.
Notes could we hear as of a faery shell
Attuned to words with sacred wisdom fraught;
Free Fancy prized each specious miracle,
And all its finer inspiration caught;
Till in the bosom of our rustic Cell
We by a lamentable change were taught
That " bliss with mortal Man may not abide: '
How nearly joy and sorrow are allied!
For us the stream of fiction ceased to flow,
For us the voice of melody was mute.
-But, as soft gales dissolve the dreary snow,
And give the timid herbage leave to shoot,
Heaven's breathing influence failed not to bestow
A timely promise of unlooked-for fruit,
Fair fruit of pleasure and serene content
From blossoms wild of fancies innocent.
It soothed us-it beguiled us-then, to hear
Once more of troubles wrought by magic spell;
And griefs whose aery motion comes not near
The pangs that tempt the Spirit to rebel:
Then, with mild Una in her sober cheer,
High over hill and low adown the dell
Again we wandered, willing to partake
All that she suffered for her dear Lord's sake.
Then, too, this Song of mine once more could please,
Where anguish, strange as dreams of restless sleep,
Is tempered and allayed by sympathies
Aloft ascending, and descending deep,
Even to the inferior Kinds; whom forest-trees
Protect from beating sunbeams, and the sweep
Of the sharp winds;-fair Creatures!-to whom Heaven
A calm and sinless life; with love, hath given.
This tragic Story cheered us; for it speaks
Of female patience winning firm repose;
And, of the recompense that conscience seeks,
A bright, encouraging, example shows;
Needful when o'er wide realms the tempest breaks,
Needful amid life's ordinary woes;Hence, not for them unfitted who would bless
A happy hour with holier happiness.




The White Doe of Rylstone                      I89
He serves the Muses erringly and ill,
Whose aim is pleasure light and fugitive:
Oh, that my mind were equal to fulfil
The comprehensive mandate which they giveVain aspiration of an earnest will!
Yet in this moral Strain a power may live,
Beloved Wife! such solace to impart
As it hath yielded to thy tender heart.
RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND,
April 20, I815.
"Action is transitory-a step, a blow,
The motion of a muscle-this way or that'Tis done; and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed:
Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And has the nature of infinity.
Yet through that darkness (infinite though it seem
And irremoveable) gracious openings lie,
By which the soul-with patient steps of thought
Now toiling, wafted now on wings of pray —
May pass in hope, and, though from mortal bonds
Yet undelivered, rise with sure ascent
Even to the fountain-head of peace divine."
"They that deny a God, destroy Man's nobility: for certainly Man
is of kinn to the Beast by his Body; and if he be not of kinn to God
by his Spirit, he is a base, ignoble Creature. It destroys likewise
Magnanimity, and the raising of humane Nature: for take an
example of a Dogg, and mark what a generosity and courage he
will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a Man, who to him
is instead of a God, or Melior Natura. Which courage is manifestly
such, as that Creature without that confidence of a better Nature than
his own could never attain. So Man, when he resteth and assureth
himself upon Divine protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith
which human Nature in itself could not obtain."
LORD BACON.
CANTO FIRST
FROM Bolton's old monastic tower
The bells ring loud with gladsome power
The sun shines bright; the fields are gay
With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of crystal Wharf,
Through the Vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And, up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,




I90    The.White Doe- of Rylstone
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus in joyous mood they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory.
What would they there?-Full fifty years
That sumptuous Pile, with all its peers,
Too harshly hath been doomed to taste
The bitterness of wrong and waste:
Its courts are ravaged; but the tower
Is standing with a voice of power,
That ancient voice which wont to call
To mass or some high festival;
And in the shattered fabric's heart
Remaineth'one protected part;
A Chapel, like a wild-bird's nest,
Closely embowered and trimly drest;
And thither young and old repair,
This Sabbath-day, for praise and prayer.
Fast the churchyard fills;-anon
Look again, and.they all are gone;
The cluster round theporch, and the folk
Who sate in the- shade of the Prior's Oak!
And scarcely have they disappeared
':  Ere the prelusivehymn is heard:-:- With 0one consent the people rejoice,;-F,-illing. the church with a lofty voice: They sing a service which they feel:.
For - 'tisthe -sunrise-now of izeal;-;: afpuire faiththe'verna l prime — -  -
In great E^izas- golden time.  -
A::.   -A  nmoment ends the fervent din,
And all is hushed, without and within;
For though the priest, more tranquilly,
Recites the holy liturgy, -
The only-voice whicheyou can hear
Is the river murmuring nearr. -
-When soft!-the dusky' trees between,
And down the path through the open green,
Where is no living thing to be seen;
And through yon igateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch- with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the churchyard groundComes gliding-in with:lovely gleam,
Comes gliding- in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream, —:




The White Doe of Rylstone
A solitary Doe!,     -, -
White she is as lily of June,
And beauteous as the silver moon
When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in heaven;
Or like a ship some gentle day
In sunshine sailing far away,
A glittering ship,. that hath the plain
Of ocean for her own domain.
Lie silent in your graves, ye dead!
Lie quiet in your churchyard bed!
Ye living, tend your holy cares;
Ye multitude, pursue your prayers;
And blame not, me if my -heart and sight
Are occupied with one delight!
'Tis a work for sabbath hours
If I with this bright Creature- go:
Whether she be of forest bowers,
From the bowers of earth below;
Or a Spirit for one day given,
A pledge of grace from purest heaven.
What harmonious pensive changes
Wait upon her as she ranges
Round and through this Pile of state
Overthrown and desolate!.
Now a stepRor-twoher.way    -
Leads through space of open day,
Where the enamoured sunny light
Brightens her that was so bright;
Now doth a delicate shadow fall,
Falls upon her like a breath,
From some lofty arch or-wall,
As she passes underneath:
Now some gloomy nook partakes
Of the glory that she makes,High-ribbed vault of stone,: or cell,
With perfect-cunning framed as well
Of stone, and ivy,.and the spread
Of the elder's bushy head;
Some jealous and forbidding cell,
That doth the living stars repel,
And where no flower hath leave to dwell.
The presence of this wandering Doe
Fills many a damp obscure recess
With lustre of a saintly show;


I9I




192    The White Doe of Rylstone
And, reappearing, she no less
Sheds on the flowers that round her blow
A more than sunny liveliness.
But say, among these holy places,
Which thus assiduously she paces,
Comes she with a votary's task,
Rite to perform, or boon to ask?
Fair Pilgrim! harbours she a sense
Of sorrow, or of reverence?
Can she be grieved for quire or shrine,
Crushed as if by wrath divine?
For what survives of house where God
Was worshipped, or where Man abode;
For old magnificence undone;
Or for the gentler work begun
By Nature, softening and concealing,
And busy with a hand of healing?
Mourns she for lordly chamber's hearth
That to the sapling ash gives birth;
For dormitory's length laid bare
Where the wild rose blossoms fair;
Or altar, whence the cross was rent,
Now rich with mossy ornament?
-She sees a warrior carved in stone,
Among the thick weeds, stretched alone;
A warrior, with his shield of pride
Cleaving humbly to his side,
And hands in resignation prest,
Palm to palm, on his tranquil breast;
As little she regards the sight
As a common creature might:
If she be doomed to inward care,
Or service, it must lie elsewhere.
-But hers are eyes serenely bright,
And on she moves-with pace how light t
Nor spares to stoop her head, and taste
The dewy turf with flowers bestrown;
And thus she fares, until at last
Beside the ridge of a grassy grave
In quietness she lays her down;
Gentle as a weary wave
Sinks, when the summer breeze hath died
Against an anchored vessel's side;
Even so, without distress, doth she
Lie down in peace, and lovingly.




The White Doe of Rylstone


I93


The day is placid in its going,
To a lingering motion bound,
Like the crystal stream now flowing
With its softest summer sound:
So the balmy minutes pass,
While this radiant Creature lies
Couched upon the dewy grass,
Pensively with downcast eyes.
-But now again the people raise
With awful cheer a voice of praise;
It is the last, the parting song;
And from the temple forth they throng,
And quickly spread themselves abroad,
While each pursues his several road.
But some-a variegated band
Of middle-aged, and old, and young,
And little children by the hand
Upon their leading mothers hung —
With mute obeisance gladly paid
Turn towards the spot, where, full in view,
The white Doe, to her service true,
Her sabbath couch has made.
It was a solitary mound;
Which two spears' length of level ground
Did from all other graves divide:
As if in some respect of pride;
Or melancholy's sickly mood,
Still shy of human neighbourhood;
Or guilt, that humbly would express
A penitential loneliness.
"Look! there she is, my Child! draw near;
She fears not, wherefore should we fear?
She means no harm;" —but still the Boy,
To whom the words were softly said,
Hung back, and smiled, and blushed for joy,
A shame-faced blush of glowing red!
Again the Mother whispered low,
" Now you have seen the famous Doe;
From Rylstone she hath found her way
Over the hills this sabbath day;
Her work, whate'er it be, is done,
And she will depart when we are gone;
Thus doth she keep, from year to year,
Her sabbath morning, foul or fair."
Bright was the Creature, as in dreams
H




194 The White Doe of Rylstone
The Boy had seen her, yea, more bright;
But is she truly what she seems?
He asks with insecure delight,
Asks of himself, and doubts,-and still
The doubt returns against his will:
Though he, and all the standers-by,
Could tell a tragic history
Of facts divulged, wherein appear
Substantial motive, reason clear,
Why thus the milk-white Doe is found
Couchant beside that lonely mound;
And why she duly loves to pace
The circuit of this hallowed place.
Nor to the Child's inquiring mind
Is such perplexity confined:
For, spite of sober Truth that sees
A world of fixed remembrances
Which to this mystery belong,
If, undeceived, my skill can trace
The characters of every face,
There lack not strange-delusion here,
Conjecture vague, -and idle fear,
And superstitious fancies strong,
Which do the gentle Creature wrong.
That bearded, staff-supported SireWho in his boyhood often fed
Full cheerily on convent-bread
And heard old tales by the convent-fire,.
And to his grave will go with-scars,
Relics of long and distant warsThat Old Man, studious- to expound
The spectacle,:is mounting high
To days of dim antiquity;.
When Lady Aaliza mourned.:
Her Son, and-felt in her despair
The pang of unavailing prayer.;
Her Son in Wharf's abysses drowned,
The noble Boy of Egremound.;
From which affliction-when the grace
Of God had in her heart found placeA pious structure, fair to see,
Rose up,:this stately Priory! —
The Lady's work;-but now laid low;
To the grief -of -her soul that doth come and go,
In the beautiful-form of this..innocent Doe:




The: White Doe of Rylstone             195
Which, though seemingly doomed in its breast to sustain
A softened remembrance of sorrow and pain,
Is spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright;
And glides o'er the earth like an angel of light.
Pass, pass who will, yon chantry door;
And, through the chink in the fractured floor
Look down, and see a griesly sight;
A vault where the bodies are buried upright!
There, face by face, and hand by hand,
The Claphams and Mauleverers stand;
And, in his place, among son and sire,
Is John de Clapham, that fierce Esquire,
A valiant man, and a name of dread
In the ruthless wars of the White and Red;
Who dragged Earl Pembroke from Banbury church
And smote off his head on the stones of the porch!
Look down among them, if you dare;
Oft does the White Doe loiter there,
Prying into the darksome rent;
Nor can it be with good intent:
So thinks that Dame of haughty air,
Who hath a Page her book to hold,
And wears a frontlet edged with gold.
Harsh thoughts with her high mood agreeWho counts among her ancestry
Earl Pembroke, slain so impiously!
That slender Youth, a scholar pale,
From Oxford come to his native vale,
He also hath his own conceit:- --;
It is, thinks he, the gracious Fairy,
Who loved the Shepherd-lord to meet
In his wanderings solitary:
Wild notes she in his hearing sang,
A song of Nature's hidden powers;
That whistled like- the wind, and rang
Among the rocks and holly bowers.
'Twas said that She all shapes could wear;
And oftentimes before him stood,
Amid the trees of some thick wood,
In semblance of a lady fair;
And taught him signs, and showed him sights,
In Craven's dens, on Cumbrian heights;
When under cloud of fear he lay,
A shepherd clad in homely grey;
Nor left him at his later day.




196 The White Doe of Rylstone
And hence, when he, with spear and shield,
Rode full of years to Flodden-field,
His eye could see the hidden spring,
And how the current was to flow;
The fatal end of Scotland's King,
And all that hopeless overthrow.
But not in wars did he delight,
This Clifford wished for worthier might;
Nor in broad pomp, or courtly state;
Him his own thoughts did elevate,Most happy in the shy recess
Of Barden's lowly quietness.
And choice of studious friends had he
Of Bolton's dear fraternity;
Who, standing on this old church tower,
In many a calm propitious hour,
Perused, with him, the starry sky;
Or, in their cells, with him did pry
For other lore,-by keen desire
Urged to close toil with chemic fire;
In quest belike of transmutations
Rich as the mine's most bright creations.
But they and their good works are fled,
And all is now disquietedAnd peace is none, for living or dead!
Ah, pensive Scholar, think not so,
But look again at the radiant Doe!
What quiet watch she seems to keep,
Alone, beside that grassy heap!
Why mention other thoughts unmeet
For vision so composed and.sweet?
While stand the people in a ring,
Gazing, doubting, questioning;
Yea, many overcome in spite
Of recollections clear and bright;
Which yet do unto some impart
An undisturbed repose of heart.
And all the assembly own a law
Of orderly respect and awe;
But see-they vanish one by one,
And last, the Doe herself is gone.
Harp! we have been full long beguiled
By vague thoughts, lured by fancies'wild;
To which, with no reluctant strings,
Thou hast attuned thy murmurings;




The White      Doe of Rylstone         I97
And now before this Pile we stand
In solitude, and utter peace:
But, Harp! thy murmurs may not ceaseA Spirit, with his angelic wings,
In soft and breeze-like visitings,
Has touched thee-and a Spirit's hand:
A voice is with us-a command
To chant, in strains of heavenly glory,
A tale of tears, a mortal story!
CANTO SECOND
THE Harp in lowliness obeyed;
And first we sang of the greenwood shade
And a solitary Maid;*
Beginning, where the song must end,
With her, and with her sylvan Friend;
The Friend who stood before her sight,
Her only unextinguished light;
Her last companion in a dearth
Of love, upon a hopeless earth.
For She it was-this Maid, who wrought
Meekly, with foreboding thought,
In vermeil colours and in gold
An unblest work; which, standing by,
Her Father did with joy behold,Exulting in its imagery;
A Banner, fashioned to fulfil
Too perfectly his headstrong will:
For on this Banner had her hand
Embroidered (such her Sire's command)
The sacred Cross; and figured there
The five dear wounds our Lord did bear;
Full soon to be uplifted high,
And float in rueful company!
It was the time when England's Queen
Twelve years had reigned, a Sovereign dread;
Nor yet the restless crown had been
Disturbed upon her virgin head;
But now the inly-working North
Was ripe to send its thousands forth,
A potent vassalage, to fight
In Percy's and in Neville's right,
Two Earls fast leagued in discontent,
Who gave their wishes open vent;
And boldly urged a general plea,




I98    The White Doe of Rylstone
The rites of ancient piety
To be triumphantly restored,
By the stern justice of the sword!
And that same Banner, on whose breast
The blameless Lady had exprest
Memorials chosen to give life
And sunshine to a dangerous strife;
That Banner,: waiting for the Call,
Stood quietly in Rylstone-hall.
It came; and Francis Norton said,
"   Father! rise not in this frayThe hairs are white upon your head;
Dear Father, hear me when I say
It is for you too late a day!
Bethink you of your own good name:
A just and gracious Queen have we,
A pure religion, and the claim
Of peace on our humanity.'Tis meet that I endure your scorn;
I am your son, your eldest born;
But not for lordship or for land,
My Father, do I clasp your knees;
The Banner touch not, stay your hand,
This multitude of men disband,
And live at home in blameless ease;For these my brethren's sake, for me-;
And, most of all, for Emily!"
Tumultuous noises filled the hall;
And scarcely could the Father hear
That name-pronounced with a dying fallThe name of his only Daughter dear,
As on the banner which stood near
He glanced a look of holy pride,
And his moist eyes were glorified;
Then did he seize the staff, and say:
" Thou, Richard, bear'st thy father's name,
Keep thou this ensign till the day
When I of thee require the same:
Thy place be on my better hand;And seven as true as thou, I see,
Will cleave to this good cause and me."
He spake, and eight brave sons straightway
All followed him, a gallant band!
Thus, with his sons, when forth he came
The sight was hailed with loud acclaim




The White Doe of Rylstone I99
And din of arms and minstrelsy,
From all his warlike tenantry,
All horsed and harnessed with him to ride,A voice to which the hills replied!
But Francis, in the vacant hall,
Stood silent under dreary weight,A phantasm, in which roof and wall
Shook, tottered, swam before his sight;
A phantasm like a dream of night!
Thus overwhelmed, and desolate,
He found his way to a postern-gate;
And, when he waked, his languid eye
Was on the calm and silent sky;
With air about him breathing sweet,
And earth's green grass beneath his feet;
Nor did he fail ere long to hear
A sound of military cheer,
Faint-but it reached that sheltered spot;
He heard, and it disturbed him not.
There stood he, leaning on a lance
Which he had grasped unknowingly,
Had blindly grasped in that strong trance,
That dimness of heart-agony;
There stood he, cleansed from the despair
And sorrow of his fruitless prayer.
The past he calmly hath reviewed:
But where will be the fortitude
Of this brave man, when he shall see
That Form beneath the spreading tree,
And know that it is Emily?
He saw her where in open view
She sate beneath the spreading yewHer head upon her lap, concealing
In solitude her bitter feeling:
" Might ever son command a sire,
The act were justified to-day."
This to himself-and to the Maid,
Whom now he had approached, he said"Gone are they,-they have their desire;
And I with thee one hour will stay,
To give thee comfort if I may."
She heard, but looked not up, nor spake;
And sorrow moved him to partake
Her silence; then his thoughts turned round,
And fervent words a passage found.




200 The White Doe of Rylstone
"Gone are they, bravely, though misled;
With a dear Father at their head!
The Sons obey a natural lord;
The Father had given solemn word
To noble Percy; and a force
Still stronger, bends him to his course.
This said, our tears to-day may fall
As at an innocent-funeral.
In deep and awful channel runs
This sympathy of Sire and Sons;
Untried our Brothers have been loved
With heart by simple nature moved;
And now their faithfulness is proved:
For faithful we must call them, bearing
That soul of conscientious daring.
-There were they all in circle-there
Stood Richard, Ambrose, Christopher,
John with a sword that will not fail,
And Marmaduke in fearless mail,
And those bright Twins were side by side;
And there, by fresh hopes beautified,
Stood He, whose arm yet lacks the power
Of man, our youngest, ~fairest flower 1
I, by the right of eldest born,
And in a second father's place,
Presumed to grapple with their scorn,
And meet their pity face to face;
Yea, trusting in God's holy aid,
I to my Father knelt and prayed;
And one, the pensive Marmaduke,
Methought, was yielding inwardly,
And would have laid his purpose by,
But for a glance of his Father's eye,
Which I myself could scarcely brook.
Then be we, each and all, forgiven!
Thou, chiefly thou, my Sister dear,
Whose pangs are registered in heavenThe stifled sigh, the hidden tear,
And smiles, that dared to take their place,
Meek filial smiles, upon thy face,
As that unhallowed Banner grew
Beneath a loving old Man's view.
Thy part is done-thy painful part;
Be thou then satisfied in heart!
A further, though far easier, task




The White Doe of Rylstone 20I
Than thine hath been, my duties ask;
With theirs my efforts cannot blend,
I cannot for such cause contend;
Their aims I utterly forswear;
But I in body will be there.
Unarmed and naked will I go,
Be at their side, come weal or woe:
On kind occasions I may wait,
See, hear, obstruct, or mitigate.
Bare breast I take and an empty hand." -
Therewith he threw away the lance,
Which he had grasped in that strong trance,
Spurned it, like something that would stand
Between him and the pure intent
Of love on which his soul was bent.
"For thee, for thee, is left the sense
Of trial past without offence
To God or man; such innocence,
Such consolation, and the excess
Of an unmerited distress;
In that thy very strength must lie.
-O  Sister, I could prophesy!
The time is come that rings the knell
Of all we loved, and loved so well:
Hope nothing, if I thus may speak
To thee, a woman, and thence weak:
Hope nothing, I repeat; for we
Are doomed to perish utterly:
'Tis meet that thou with me divide
The thought while I am by thy side,
Acknowledging a grace in this,
A comfort in the dark abyss.
But look not for me when I am gone,
And be no farther wrought upon:
Farewell all wishes, all debate,
All prayers for this cause, or for that!
Weep, if that aid thee; but depend
Upon no help of outward friend;
Espouse thy doom at once, and cleave
To fortitude without reprieve.
For we must fall, both we and oursThis Mansion and these pleasant bowers,
Walks, pools, and arbours, homestead, hallOur fate is theirs, will reach them all;
1 See the old ballad,-" The Rising of the North."
H 2




202    The White Doe of Rylstone
The young horse must forsake his manger,
And learn to glory in a Stranger;
The hawk forget his perch; the hound
Be parted from his ancient ground:
The blast will sweep us all awayOne desolation, one decay!
And even this Creature!" which words saying,
He pointed to a lovely Doe,
A few steps distant, feeding, straying;
Fair creature, and more white than snow!
" Even she will to her peaceful woods
Return, and to her murmuring floods,
And be in heart and soul the same
She was before she hither came;.
Ere she had learned to love us all,
Herself beloved in Rylstone-hall.
-But thou, my Sister, doomed to be
The last leaf on a blasted tree;
If not in vain we:breathed the breath
Together of a purer faith;
If hand in hand we have been led,
And thou, (0 happy thought this day:)
Not seldom foremost in the way;
If on one thought our minds have fed,
And we have in one meaning read;
If, when at home our private weal
Hath suffered frommthe shock of zeal,Together we have learned to prize
Forbearance and self-sacrifice;:
If we like combatants have fared,
And for this issue been prepared;
If thou art beautiful, and youth
And thought endue thee with all truthBe strong;-be worthy of the grace
Of God, and fill thy destined place:..
A Soul, by force of sorrows -high, -
Uplifted to the purest sky
Of undisturbed humanity! "
He ended,-or she heard no more;
He led her from the yew-tree shade,
And at the mansion's silent door,
He kissed the consecrated Maid;
And down the valley then pursued,
Alone, the armed Multitude.




The White Doe of Rylstone              203
CANTO THIRD
Now joy for you who from the towers
Of Brancepeth look in doubt and fear,
Telling melancholy hours!
Proclaim it, let your Masters hear
That Norton with his band is near!
The watchmen from their station high
Pronounced the word,-and the Earls descry,
Well-pleased,. the armed Company
Marching down the banks of Were.
Said fearless Norton to the pair
Gone forth to greet him on the plain"This meeting, noble Lords! looks fair,
I bring with me a goodly train;
Their hearts are with you: hill and dale
Have helped us: Ure we crossed, and Swale,
And horse and harness followed-see
The best part of their Yeomanry!
-Stand forth, my Sons!-these eight are mine!
Whom to this service I commend;
Which way soe'er our fate incline,
These will be faithful to the end;
They are my all "-voice failed him here"My all save one, a Daughterdear!
Whom I have left, Love's mildest birth,
The meekest Child on this blessed earth,
I had-but these are by my side,
These Eight, and this is -a day of pride'!
The time is ripe. With festive din
Lo! how the people are flocking in,Like hungry fowl to the feeder's hand
When snow lies heavy upon the land."
He spake bare truth: for far and near,;
From every side came noisy swarms
Of Peasants in their homely gear;
And, mixed with these, to Brancepeth came
Grave Gentry of estate and name,
And Captains known for worth in arms
And prayed the Earls in self-defence
To rise, and prove their innocence.Rise, noble Earls, put forth your might  -
For holy Church, and the People's right "
The Norton fixed, at this demand,
His eye upon Northumberland,




204 The White Doe of Rylstone
And said; "The Minds of Men will own
No loyal rest while England's Crown
Remains without an Heir, the bait
Of strife and factions desperate;
Who, paying deadly hate in kind
Through all things else, in this can find
A mutual hope, a common mind;
And plot, and pant to overwhelm
All ancient honour in the realm.
-Brave Earls! to whose heroic veins
Our noblest blood is given in trust,
To you a suffering State complains,
And ye must raise her from the dust.
With wishes of still bolder scope
On you we look, with dearest hope;
Even for our Altars-for the prize,
In Heaven, of life that never dies;
For the old and holy Church we mourn,
And must in joy to her return.
Behold - "-and from his Son whose stand
Was on his right, from that guardian hand
He took the Banner, and unfurled
The precious folds-" behold," said he,
"The ransom of a sinful world;
Let this your preservation be;
The wounds of hands and feet and side,
And the sacred Cross on which Jesus died.
This bring I from an ancient hearth,
These Records wrought in pledge of love
By hands of no ignoble birth,
A Maid o'er whom the blessed Dove
Vouchsafed in gentleness to brood
While she the holy work pursued."
"4 Uplift the Standard! " was the cry
From all the listeners that stood round,
" Plant it,-by this we live or die."
The Norton ceased not for that sound,
But said; "The -prayer which ye have heard,
Much-injured Earls! by these preferred,
Is offered to the Saints, the sigh
Of tens of thousands, secretly.""Uplift it! " cried once more the Band,
And then a thoughtful pause ensued:
"Uplift it! " -said NorthumberlandWhereat, from all the multitude




The White Doe of Rylstone


205


Who saw the Banner reared on high
In all its dread emblazonry,
A voice of uttermost joy brake out:
The transport was rolled down the river of Were,
And Durham, the time-honoured Durham, did hear,
And the towers of Saint Cuthbert were stirred by the shout!
Now was the North in arms:-they shine
In warlike trim from Tweed to Tyne,
At Percy's voice: and Neville sees
His Followers gathering in from Tees,
From Were, and all the little rills
Concealed among the forked hillsSeven hundred Knights, Retainers all
Of Neville, at their Master's call
Had sate together in Raby Hall!
Such strenath that Earldom held of yore;
Nor wanted at this time rich store
Of well-appointed chivalry.
-Not loth the sleepy lance to wield,
And greet the old paternal shield,
They heard the summons;-and, furthermore,
Horsemen and Foot of each degree,
Unbound by pledge of fealty,
Appeared, with free and open hate
Of novelties in Church and State;
Knight, burgher, yeoman, and esquire;
And Romish priest, in priest's attire.
And thus, in arms, a zealous Band
Proceeding under joint command,
To Durham first their course they bear;
And in Saint Cuthbert's ancient seat
Sang mass,-and tore the book of prayer,
And trod the bible beneath their feet.
Thence marching southward smooth and free
"They mustered their host at Wetherby,
Full sixteen thousand fair to see,"; 1
The Choicest Warriors of the North!
But none for beauty and for worth
Like those eight Sons-who, in a ring,
(Ripe men, or blooming in life's spring)
Each with a lance, erect and tall,
A falchion, and a buckler small,
Stood by their Sire, on Clifford-moor,
To guard the Standard which he bore.
From the old ballad.




206    The White Doe of Rylstone
On foot they girt their Father round;
And so will keep the appointed ground
Where'er their march: no steed will he
Henceforth bestride;-triumphantly,
He stands upon the grassy sod,
Trusting himself to the earth, and God.
Rare sight to embolden and inspire!
Proud was the field of Sons and Sire;
Of him the most; and, sooth to say,
No shape of man in all the array
So graced the sunshine of that day.
The monumental pomp of age
Was with this goodly Personage;
A stature undepressed in size,
Unbent, which rather seemed to rise,
In open victory o'er the weight
Of seventy years,- to loftier height;
Magnific limbs of withered state;
A face to fear and venerate;
Eyes dark and strong; and on his head
Bright locks of silver hair, thick spread,
Which a brown morion half-concealed,
Light as a hunter's of the field;
And thus, with girdle round his waist,
Whereon the Banner-staff might rest
At need, he stood, advancing high     -
The glittering, floating Pageantry.
Who sees him?-thousands see, and One
With unparticipated gaze;
Who, 'mong those thousands, friend hath none,
And treads in solitary ways.
He, following wheresoe'er he might,
Hath watched the Banner from afar,
As shepherds watch a lonely star,
Or mariners the distant light
That guides them through a stormy night.
And now, upon a chosen plot
Of rising ground, yon heathy spot!
He takes alone his far-off stand,
With breast unmailed, unweaponed hand,
Bold is his aspect; but his eye
Is pregnant with anxiety,
While, like a tutelary Power,
He there stands fixed from hour to hour:
Yet sometimes in more humble guise,




The White Doe of Rylstone


207


Upon the turf-clad height he lies
Stretched, herdsman-like, as if to bask
In -sunshine were his only task,
Or by his mantle's help to find
A shelter from the nipping wind:
And thus, with short oblivion blest,
His weary spirits gather rest.
Again he lifts his eyes; and lo!
The pageant glancing to and fro;
And hope is wakened by the sight,
He thence may learn, ere fall of night,
Which way the tide is doomed to flow.
To London were the Chieftains bent;
But what avails the bold intent?
A Royal army is gone forth
To quell the RISING OF THE NORTH;
They march with Dudley at their head,
And, in seven days' space, will to York be led!Can such a mighty Host be raised
Thus suddenly, and brought so near?
The Earls upon each other gazed,
And Neville's cheek grew pale with fear;
For, with a high and valiant name,
He bore a: heart of timid frame;
And bold if both had been, yet they
"Against so many may not stay."'
B3ack therefore will they hie to seize
A strong-Hold on the banks of Tees;
There wait a favourable hour,
Until Lord Dacre with his power
From Naworth come; and Howard's aid
Be with them openly displayed.
While through the Host, from man to man,
A rumour of this purpose ran,
The Standard trusting to the care
Of him who heretofore did bear
That charge, impatient Norton sought
The Chieftains to unfold his thought,
And thus abruptly spake;-" We yield
(And can it be?) an unfought field!How oft has strength, the strength of heaven,
To few triumphantly been given!
Still do our very children boast
Of mitred Thurston-what a Host
1 From the old ballad.




208 The White Doe of Rylstone
He conquered!-Saw we not the Plain
(And flying shall behold again)
Where faith was proved?-while to battle moved
The Standard, on the Sacred Wain
That bore it, compassed round by a bold
Fraternity of Barons old;
And with those grey-haired champions stood,
Under the saintly ensigns three,
The infant Heir of Mowbray's bloodAll confident of victory!Shall Percy blush, then, for his name?
Must Westmoreland be asked with shame
Whose were the numbers, where the loss,
In that other day of Neville's Cross?
When the Prior of Durham with holy hand
Raised, as the Vision gave command,
Saint Cuthbert's Relic-far and near
Kenned on the point of a lofty spear;
While the Monks prayed in Maiden's Bower
To God descending in his power.
Less would not at our need be due
To us, who war against the Untrue;The delegates of Heaven we rise,
Convoked the impious to chastise:
We, we, the sanctities of old
Would re-establish and uphold:
Be warned "-His zeal the Chiefs confounded,
But word was given, and the trumpet sounded:
Back through the melancholy Host
Went Norton, and resumed his post.
Alas! thought he, and have I borne
This Banner raised with joyful pride,
This hope of all posterity,
By those dread symbols sanctified;
Thus to become at once the scorn
Of babbling winds as they go by,,
A spot of shame to the sun's bright eye,
To the light clouds a mockery!
-" Even these poor eight of mine would stem-"
Half to himself, and half to them
He spake-"would stem, or quell, a force
Ten times their number, man and horse:
This by their own unaided might,
Without their father in their sight,
Without the Cause for which they fight;




The White Doe of Rylstone 209
A Cause, which on a needful day
Would breed us thousands brave as they."
-So speaking, he his reverend head
Raised towards that Imagery once more:
But the familiar prospect shed
Despondency unfelt before:
A shock of intimations vain,
Dismay, and superstitious pain,
Fell on him, with the sudden thought
Of her by whom the work was wrought:Oh wherefore was her countenance bright
With love divine and gentle light?
She would not, could not, disobey,
But her Faith leaned another way.
Ill tears she wept; I saw them fall,
I overheard her as she spake
Sad words to that mute Animal,
The White Doe, in the hawthorn brake;
She steeped, but not for Jesu's sake,
This Cross in tears: by her, and One
Unworthier far we are undoneHer recreant Brother-he prevailed
Over that tender Spirit-assailed
Too oft, alas! by her whose head
In the cold grave hath long been laid:
She first, in reason's dawn beguiled
Her docile, unsuspecting Child:
Far back-far back my mind must go
To reach the well-spring of this woe 1
While thus he brooded, music sweet
Of border tunes was played to cheer
The footsteps of a quick retreat;
But Norton lingered in the rear,
Stung with sharp thoughts; and ere the last
From his distracted brain was cast,
Before his Father, Francis stood,
And spake in firm and earnest mood.
" Though here I bend a suppliant knee
In reverence, and unarmed, I bear
In your indignant thoughts my share;
Am grieved this backward march to see
So careless and disorderly.
I scorn your Chiefs-men who would lead,
And yet want courage at their need:
Then look at them with open eyes!




210    The White Doe of Rylstone
Deserve they further sacrifice?If-when they shrink, nor dare oppose
In open field their gathering foes,
(And fast, from this decisive day,
Yon multitude must melt away;)
If now I ask a grace not claimed
While ground was left for hope; unblamed
Be an endeavour that can do
No injury to them or you.
My-Father! I would help to find
A place of shelter, till the rage
Of cruel men do like the wind
Exhaust itself and sink to rest;
Be Brother now to Brother joined i
Admit me in the equipage
Of your misfortunes, that at least,
Whatever fate remain behind,
I may bear witness in my breast
To your nobility of mind!"
"Thou Enemy, ^my bane and blight I
Oh! bold to fight the Coward's fight
Against all good '-but why declare,
At length, the issue of a prayer
Which love had prompted, yielding scope -
Too free to one bright moment'shope
Suffice it that the Son, who strove
With fruitless effort to allay
That passion, prudently gave way;
Nor did he turn aside to prove
His Brothers' wisdom or theirJloveBut calmly, from the spot withdrew;
His best endeavours to renew,Should e'er a kindlier time ensue.
CANTO FOURTH
'TIS night: in silence looking down,
The Mloon, from cloudless ether, sees
A Camp, and a beleaguered Town,
And Castle, like a stately crown.
On the steep rocks of winding Tees;And southward far, with moor between,
Hill-top, and flood, and forest green,
The bright Moon sees that valley small
Where Rylstone's old sequestered Hall
A venerable image yields




The. White      Doe of Rylstone
Of quiet to the neighbouring fields;
While from one pillared chimney breathes
The smoke, and mounts in silver wreaths.
-The.courts are hushed;-for timely sleep
The greyhounds to their kennel creep;
The peacock in the broad ash tree
Aloft is roosted for the night,
I-le who in proud prosperity
Of colours manifold and bright
Walked round, affronting the daylight;
And higher still, above the bower
Where he is perched, from yon lone Tower
The hall-clock in the clear moonshine
With glittering finger points at nine.
Ah! who could think that sadness here
Hath any sway? or pain, or fear?
A soft and lulling sound is heard
Of streams inaudible -by day;
The garden pool's dark surface, stirred
By the night insects in their play,
Breaks into dimples small and bright;
A thousand, thousand rings of light
That shape themselves and disappear
Almost as soon as seen:-and lo!
Not distant far, the milk-white Doe —
The same who quietly was feeding
On the green herb, and nothing heeding,
When Francis, uttering to the MaidHis last words in the yew-tree shade,
Involved whate'er by love was brought
Out of his heart, or crossed his thought,
Or chance- presented to his eye,
In one sad sweep of destinyThe same fair Creature, who hath found
Her way into forbidden ground;
Where now-within this spacious plot
For pleasure made, a goodly spot,
With lawns and beds of flowers, and shades
Of trellis-work in long arcades,
And cirque and crescent framed by wall
Of close-clipt foliage green and tall,
Converging walks, and fountains gay,
And terraces in trim arrayBeneath yon cypress spiring high,
With pine and cedar spreading wide


21 I




212 The White Doe of Rylstone
Their'darksome boughs on either side,
In open moonlight doth she lie;
Happy as others of her kind,
That, far from human neighbourhood,
Range unrestricted as the wind,
Through park, or chase, or savage wood.
But see the consecrated Maid
Emerging from a cedar shade
To open moonshine, where the Doe
Beneath the cypress-spire is laid;
Like a patch of April snowUpon a bed of herbage green,
Lingering in a woody glade
Or behind a rocky screen- -
Lonely relic! which, if seen
By the shepherd, is passed by
With an inattentive eye.
Nor more regard doth She bestow
Upon the uncomplaining Doe
Now couched at ease, though oft this day
Not unperplexed nor free from pain,
When she had tried, and tried in vain,
Approaching in her gentle way,
To win some look of love, or gain
Encouragement to sport or play;
Attempts which still the heart-sick Maid
Rejected, or with slight repaid.
Yet Emily is soothed;-the breeze
Came fraught with kindly sympathies.
As she approached yon rustic Shed
Hung with late-flowering woodbine, spread
Along the walls and overhead,
The fragrance of the breathing flowers
Revived a memory of those hours
When here, in this remote alcove,
(While from the pendent woodbine came
Like odours, sweet as if the same)
A fondly-anxious Mother strove
To teach her salutary fears
And mysteries above her years.
Yes, she is soothed: an Image faint,
And yet not faint-a presence bright
Returns to her-that blessed Saint
Who with mild looks and language mild
Instructed here her darling Child,




The White Doe of Rylstone
While yet a prattler on the knee,
To worship in simplicity
The invisible God, and take for guide
The faith reformed and purified.
'Tis flown-the Vision, and the sense
Of that beguiling influence,
"But oh! thou Angel from above,
Mute Spirit of maternal love,
That stood'st before my eyes, more clear
Than ghosts are fabled to appear
Sent upon embassies of fear;
As thou thy presence hast to me
Vouchsafed, in radiant ministry
Descend on Francis; nor forbear
To greet him with a voice, and say;'If hope be a rejected stay,
Do thou, my christian Son, beware
Of that most lamentable snare,
The self-reliance of despair! "
Then from within the embowered retreat
Where she had found a grateful seat
Perturbed she issues. She will go!
Herself will follow to the war,
And clasp her Father's knees;-ah, no!
She meets the insuperable bar,
The injunction by her Brother laid;
His parting charge-but ill obeyedThat interdicted all debate,
All prayer for this cause or for that;
All efforts that would turn aside
The headstrong current of their fate:
Her duty is to stand and wait;
In resignation to abide
The shock, AND FINALLY SECURE
O'ER PAIN AND GRIEF A TRIUMPH PURE.
-She feels it, and her pangs are checked.
But now, as silently she paced
The turf, and thought by thought was chased,
Came One who, with sedate respect,
Approached, and, greeting her, thus spake;
" An old man's privilege I take:
Dark is the time-a woeful day!
Dear daughter of affliction, say
How can I serve you? point the way."
"Rights have you, and may well be bold;


213




214    The   White     Doe of Rylstone
You with my Father have grown old
In friendship-strive-for his sake goTurn from us all the coming woe:
This would I beg; but on my mind
A passive stillness is enjoined.
On you, if room for mortal aid
Be left, is no restriction laid;
You not forbidden to recline
With hope upon the Will divine."
"Hope," said the old Man, "must abide
With all of us, whate'er betide.
In Craven's Wilds is many a den,
To shelter persecuted men:
Far under ground is many a cave,
Where they might lie as in the grave,:
Until this storm hath ceased to rave:
Or let them cross the River Tweed,
And be at once from peril freed!"
"Ah tempt me not! " she faintly sighed;,
"I will not counsel nor exhort,
With my condition satisfied;
But you, at least, may make report
Of what befalls;-be this your taskThis may be done;-'tis all I ask!"
She spake-and from the Lady's sightThe Sire,: unconscious of his age,
Departed promptly as a Page
Bound on some errand of delight.
— The noble Francis-wise as brave,
Thought he, may want not skill to save.
With hopes in tenderness concealed,
Unarmed he followed to the field;
Him will I seek: the insurgent Powers
Are now besieging Barnard's Towers,"Grant that the Moon which shines this night
May guide them in a prudent flight!"
But quick the turns of chance and change,
And knowledge has a narrow range;
Whence idle fears, and needless pain,
And wishes blind, and efforts vain.The Moon may shine, but cannot be
Their guide in flight —already she
Hath witnessed their captivity.
She saw the desperate assault
Upon that hostile castle made;



The White Doe of Rylstone 215
But dark and dismal is the vault
Where Norton and his sons are laid!
Disastrous issue!-he had said
"This night yon faithless Towers must yield,
Or we for ever quit the field.
-Neville is utterly dismayed,
For promise fails of Howard's aid;
And Dacre to our call replies
That he is unprepared to rise.
My heart is sick;-this weary pause
Must needs be fatal to our cause.
The breach is open-on the wall,
This night, the Banner shall be planted i"
-'Twas done: his Sons were with him-all;
They belt him round with hearts undaunted
And others follow;-Sire and Son
Leap down into the court;-" 'Tis won"They shout aloud-but Heaven decreed
That with their joyful shout should close
The triumph of a desperate deed
Which struck with terror friends and foes!
The friend shrinks back-the foe recoils
From Norton and his filial band;
But they, now caught within the toils,
Against a thousand cannot stand;The foe from numbers courage drew,
And overpowered that gallant few.
"A rescue for the Standard!" cried
The Father from within the walls;
But, see, the sacred Standard falls!Confusion through the Camp spread wide:.
Some fled; and some their fears detained:
But ere the Moon had sunk to rest
In her pale chambers of the west,
Of that rash levy nought remained.
CANTO FIFTH
HIGH on a point of rugged ground
Among the wastes of Rylstone Fell,
Above the loftiest ridge or mound
Where foresters or shepherds dwell,
An edifice of warlike frame
Stands single-Norton Tower its nameIt fronts all quarters, and looks round
O'er path and road, and plain and dell,




216 The White Doe of Rylstone
Dark moor, and gleam of pool and stream,
Upon a prospect without bound.
The summit of this bold ascentThough bleak and bare, and seldom free
As Pendle-hill or Pennygent
From wind, or frost, or vapours wetHad often heard the sound of glee
When there the youthful Nortons met,
To practise games and archery:
How proud and happy they! the crowd
Of Lookers-on how pleased and proud!
And from the scorching noon-tide sun,
From showers, or when the prize was won,
They to the Tower withdrew, and there
Would mirth run round, with generous fare;
And the stern old Lord of Rylstone-hall
Was happiest, proudest, of them all!
But now, his Child, with anguish pale,
Upon the height walks to and fro;
'Tis well that she hath heard the tale,
Received the bitterness of woe:
For she had hoped, had hoped and feared,
Such rights did feeble nature claim;
And oft her steps had hither steered,
Though not unconscious of self-blame;
For she her brother's charge revered,
His farewell words; and by the same,
Yea by her brother's very name,
Had, in her solitude, been cheered.
Beside the lonely watch-tower stood
That grey-haired Man of gentle blood,
Who with her Father had grown old
In friendship; rival hunters they,
And fellow warriors in- their day;
To Rylstone he the tidings brought;
Then on this height the Maid had sought,
And, gently as he could, had told
The 'end of that dire Tragedy,
Which it had been his lot to see.
To him the Lady turned; "You said
That Francis lives, he is not dead?"
"Your noble brother hath been spared;
To take his life they have not dared;
On him and on his high endeavour
The light of praise shall shine for ever i




The White Doe of Rylstone               217
Nor did he (such Heaven's will) in vain
His solitary course maintain;
Not vainly struggled in the might
Of duty, seeing with clear sight;
He was their comfort to the last,
Their joy till every pang was past.
I witnessed when to York they cameWhat, Lady, if their feet were tied;
They might deserve a good Man's blame;
But marks of infamy and shameThese were their triumph, these their pride.
Nor wanted 'mid the pressing crowd
Deep feeling, that found utterance loud,
'Lo, Francis comes,' there were who cried,
'A Prisoner once, but now set free!
'Tis well, for he the worst defied
Through force of natural piety;
He rose not in this quarrel; he,
For concord's sake and England's good,
Suit to his Brothers often made
With tears, and of his Father prayedAnd when he had in vain withstood
Their purpose-then did he divide,
He parted from them; but at their side
Now walks in unanimity.
Then peace to cruelty and scorn,
While to the prison they are borne,
Peace, peace to all indignity!'
And so in Prison were they laidOh hear me, hear me, gentle Maid,
For I am come with power to bless,
By scattering gleams, through your distress,
Of a redeeming happiness.
Me did a reverent pity move
And privilege of ancient love;
And, in your service, making bold,
Entrance I gained to that stronghold.
Your Father gave, me cordial greeting;
But to his purposes, that burned
Within him, instantly returned:
He was commanding and entreating,
And said-' We need not stop, my Son!
Thoughts press, and time is hurrying on'And so to Francis he renewed
His words, more calmly thus pursued.




218    The White Doe of Rylstone
'Might- this our enterprise have sped,
Change wide and deep the Land had seen,
A renovation from the dead,
A spring-tide of immortal green:
The darksome altars would have blazed
Like stars when clouds are rolled away;
Salvation to all eyes that-gazed,
Once more the Rood had been upraised
To spread its arms, and stand for aye.
Then, then-had I survived to see
New: life in Bolton Priory;
The voice restored, the eye of TruthRe-opened that inspired my youth;
To see her in her pomp arrayed —
This Banner (for such vow I made)
Should on the consecrated breast
Of that same Temple have found rest:
I would myself have hung it high,
Fit offering of glad victory!
A shadow of such thought remains
To cheer this sad and pensive time;
A solemn fancy yet sustains
One feeble Being-bids me climb
Even to the last-one effort more
To attest my Faith, if not restore.
Hear then,' said he, 'while I impart,
My Son, the last wish of my heart.
The Banner strive thou to regain;
And, if the endeavour prove not vain,
Bear it-to whom if not to thee
Shall I this lonely thought consign?Bear it to Bolton Priory,
And lay it on Saint Mary's shrine;
To wither in the sun and breeze
'Mid those decaying sanctities.
There let at least the gift be laid,
The testimony there displayed;
Bold proof that with no selfish aim,
But for lost Faith and Christ's dear name,
I helmeted a brow though white,
And took a place in all men's sight;
Yea offered up this noble Brood,
This fair unrivalled Brotherhood,
And turned away from thee, my Son!
And left-but be the rest unsaid,




The White       Doe of Rylstone        2I9
The name untouched, the tear unshed;My wish is known, and I have done:
Now promise, grant this one request,
This dying prayer, and be thou blest!'
Then Francis answered-' Trust thy Son,
For, with God's will, it shall be done! 'The pledge obtained, the solemn word
Thus scarcely given, a noise was heard,
And Officers appeared in state
To lead the prisoners to their fate.
They rose, oh! wherefore should I fear
To tell, or, Lady, you to hear?
They rose-embraces none were givenThey stood like trees when earth and heaven
Are calm; they knew each other's worth,
And reverently the Band went forth.
They met, when they had reached the door,
One with profane and harsh intent
Placed there-that he might go before,
And, with that rueful Banner borne
Aloft in sign of taunting scorn,
Conduct them to their punishment:
So cruel Sussex, unrestrained
By human feeling, had ordained.
The unhappy Banner Francis saw,
And, with a look of calm command
Inspiring universal awe,
He took it from the soldier's hand;
And all the people that stood round
Confirmed the deed in peace profound.
-High transport did the Father shed
Upon his Son-and they were led,
Led on, and yielded up their breath;
Together died, a happy death!But Francis, soon as he had braved
That insult, and the Banner saved,
Athwart the unresisting tide
Of the spectators occupied
In admiration or dismay,
Bore instantly his Charge away."
These things, which thus had in the sight
And hearing passed of Him who stood
With Emily, on the Watch-tower height,
In Rylstone's woeful neighbourhood,
He told; and oftentimes with voice




220    The White      Doe of Rylstone
Of power to comfort or rejoice;
For deepest sorrows that aspire,
Go high, no transport ever higher.
"Yes-God is rich in mercy," said
The old Man to the silent Maid,
"Yet, Lady! shines, through this black night,
One star of aspect heavenly bright;
Your Brother lives-he lives-is come
Perhaps already to his home;
Then let us leave this dreary place."
She yielded, and with gentle pace,
Though without one uplifted look,
To Rylstone-hall her way she took.
CANTO SIXTH
WHY comes not Francis?-From the doleful City
He fled,-and, in his flight, could hear
The death-sounds of the Minster-bell:
That sullen stroke pronounced farewell
To Marmaduke, cut off from pity!
To Ambrose that! and then a knell
For him, the sweet half-opened Flower!
For all-all dying in one hour!
-Why comes not Francis? Thoughts of love
Should bear him to his Sister dear
With the fleet motion of a dove;
Yea, like a heavenly messenger
Of speediest wing, should he appear.
Why comes he not?-for westward fast
Along the plain of York he past;
Reckless of what impels or leads,
Unchecked he hurries on; —nor heeds
The sorrow, through the Villages,
Spread by triumphant cruelties
Of vengeful military force,
And punishment without remorse.
He marked not, heard not, as he fled;
All but the suffering heart was dead
For him, abandoned to blank awe,
To vacancy, and horror strong:
And the first object which he saw,
With conscious sight, as he swept alongIt was the Banner in his hand!
He felt-and made a sudden stand.
He looked about like one betrayed:




The White Doe of Rylstone
What hath he done? what promise made?
Oh weak, weak moment! to what end
Can such a vain oblation tend,
And he the Bearer?-Can he go
Carrying this instrument of woe,
And find, find anywhere, a right
To excuse him in his Country's sight?
No; will not all men deem the change
A downward course, perverse and strange?
Here is it;-but how? when? must she,
The unoffending Emily,
Again this piteous object see?
Such conflict long did he maintain,
Nor liberty nor rest could gain:
His own life into danger brought
By this sad burden-even that thought,
Exciting self-suspicion strong,
Swayed the brave man to his wrong.
And how-unless it were the sense
Of all-disposing Providence,
Its will unquestionably shownHow has the Banner clung so fast
To a palsied, and unconscious hand;
Clung to the hand to which it passed
Without impediment? And why,
But that Heaven's purpose might be known,
Doth now no hindrance meet his eye,
No intervention, to withstand
Fulfilment of a Father's prayer
Breathed to a Son forgiven, and blest
When all resentments were at rest,
And life in death laid the heart bare?Then, like a spectre sweeping by,
Rushed through his mind the prophecy
Of utter desolation made
To Emily in the yew-tree shade:
He sighed, submitting will and power
To the stern embrace of that grasping hour.
"No choice is left, the deed is mineDead are they, dead!-and I will go,
And, for their sakes, come weal or woe,
Will lay the Relic on the shrine."
So forward with a steady will
He went, and traversed plain and hill;
And up the vale of Wharf his way


221




222    The White Doe of Rylstone
Pursued;-and, at the dawn of day,
Attained a summit whence his eyes
Could see the Tower of Bolton rise.
There Francis for a moment's space
Made halt-but hark! a noise behind
Of horsemen at an eager pace!
He heard, and with misgiving mind.
-'Tis Sir George Bowes who-leads the Band:
They come, by cruel Sussex sent;
Who, when the Nortons from the hand
Of death had drunk their punishment,
Bethought him, angry and ashamed,  -
How Francis, with the Banner claimed
As his own charge, had disappeared, -  -
By all the standers-by revered.;
His whole bold carriage (which had quelled
Thus far the Opposer, and repelled
All censure, enterprise so bright
That even bad men had vainly striven
Against that overcoming light)
Was then reviewed, and prompt word given
That to what place soever fled
He should be seized, alive or dead.
The troop of horse have gained the height
Where Francis stood in open sight.
They hem him round —" Behold the proof,"
They cried, "the Ensign in his hand!
He did not arm, he walked aloof!
For why?-to save his Father's land;Worst Traitor of them all -is. he,
A Traitor dark and cowardly!"
"I am no -Traitor," Francis said,
"Though this unhappy freight:I bear;
And must not part with. But beware; —
Err not by hasty zeal misled,  -:
Nor dco a suffering Spirit-wrong,
Whose self-reproaches are too strong!"
At this he from the beaten road
Retreated towards a brake of thorn,
That like a place of vantage showed;
And there stood bravely, though forlorn.
In self-defence with warlike browHe stood,-nor weaponless was now;
He from a Soldier's hand had snatched
A spear,-and, so protected, watched  -




The White Doe of Rylstone


223


The Assailants, turning round and round;
But from behind with treacherous wound
A Spearman brought him to the ground.
The guardian lance, as Francis fell,
Dropped from him; but his other hand
The Banner clenched; till, from out the Band,
One, the most eager for the prize,
Rushed in; and-while, 0 grief to tell!
A glimmering sense still left, with eyes
Unclosed the noble Francis lay —
Seized- it, as hunters seize their prey; -
But not before the warm life-blood
Had tinged more deeply, as it flowed,
The wounds the broidered Banner showed,
Thy fatal work, 0 Maiden, innocent as good!
Proudly the Horsemen bore away
The Standard; and where Francis lay
There was he left alone, unwept,
And for two days unnoticed slept.
For at that time bewildering fear
Possessed the country, far and near;
But, on the third day, passing by
One of the Norton Tenantry
Espied the uncovered Corse;- the Man
Shrunk as he recognised the face,
And to the nearest homesteads ran
And-called the people to the place.
-How desolate is Rylstorie-hall!
This was the instant thought of all;
And if the lonely Lady thereShould be; to her they cannot bear
This weight of anguish and despair.
So, when upon sad thoughts had prest
Thoughts sadder still, they deemed it bestThat, if the Priest -should yield assent? '
And no one hinder their intent,
Then, they, for Christian-pity's sake,
In holy ground a grave would make;:
And straightway buried he should beIn the Churchyard of the Priory.
Apart, some little space, was made
The grave where Francis must be laid.
In no confusion or neglect
This did they,-but in pure respect
That he was born of gentle blood;




224 The White Doe of Rylstone
And that there was no neighbourhood
Of kindred for him in that ground:
So to the Churchyard they are bound,
Bearing the body on a bier;
And psalms they sing-a holy sound
That hill and vale with sadness hear.
But Emily hath raised her head,
And is again disquieted;
She must behold!-so many gone,
Where is the solitary One?
And forth from Rylstone-hall stepped she,To seek her Brother forth she went,
And tremblingly her course she bent
Toward Bolton's ruined Priory.
She comes, and in the vale hath heard
The funeral dirge;-she sees the knot
Of people, sees them in one spot —
And darting like a wounded bird
She reached the grave, and with her breast
Upon the ground received the rest,The consummation, the whole ruth
And sorrow of this final truth!
CANTO SEVENTH
"Powers there are
That touch each other to the quick-in modes
Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive,
No soul to dream of."
THOU Spirit, whose angelic hand
Was to the harp a strong command,
Called the submissive strings to wake
In glory for this Maiden's sake,
Say, Spirit! whither hath she fled
To hide her poor afflicted head?
What mighty forest in its gloom
Enfolds her?-is a rifted tomb
Within the wilderness her seat?
Some island which the wild waves beatIs that the Sufferer's last retreat?
Or some aspiring rock, that shrouds
Its perilous front in mists and clouds?
High-climbing rock, low sunless dale,
Sea, desert, what do these avail?
Oh take her anguish and her fears
Into a deep recess of years




The White Doe of Rylstone


225


'Tis done;-despoil and desolation
O'er Rylstone's fair domain have blown;
Pools, terraces, and walks are sown
With weeds; the bowers are overthrown,
Or have given way to slow mutation,
While, in their ancient habitation
The Norton name hath been unknown.
The lordly Mansion of its pride
Is stripped; the ravage hath spread wide
Through park and field, a perishing
That mocks the gladness of the Spring!
And, with this silent gloom agreeing,
Appears a joyless human Being,
Of aspect such as if the waste
Were under her dominion placed.
Upon a primrose bank, her throne
Of quietness, she sits alone;
Among the ruins of a wood,
Erewhile a covert bright and green,
And where full many a brave tree stood,
That used to spread its boughs, and ring
With the sweet bird's carolling.
Behold her, like a virgin Queen,
Neglecting in imperial state
These outward images of fate,
And carrying inward a serene
And perfect sway, through many a thought
Of chance and change, that hath been brought
To the subjection of a holy,
Though stern and rigorous, melancholy!
The like authority, with grace
Of awfulness, is in her face,There hath she fixed it; yet it seems
To o'ershadow by no native right
That face, which cannot lose the gleams,
Lose utterly the tender gleams,
Of gentleness and meek delight,
And loving-kindness ever bright:
Such is her sovereign mien:-her dress
(A vest with woollen cincture tied,
A hood of mountain-wool undyed)
Is homely,-fashioned to express
A wandering Pilgrim's humbleness.
And she hath wandered, long and far,
Beneath the light of sun and star;
I




226    The White Doe of RyIstone
Hath roamed in trouble and in grief,
Driven forward Iike a withered leaf,
Yea like a ship at random blown
To distant places and unknown.
But now she dares to seek a haven
Among her native wilds of Craven;
Hath seen again her Father's roof,
And put her fortitude to proof;
The mighty sorro-w hath been borne,
And she is thoroughly forlorn:
Her soul doth in itself stand fast,
Sustained by memory of the past
And strength of Reason; held aboveThe infirmities of mortal. love;
Undaunted, lofty, calm, and stable,
And awfully impenetrable.
And so-beneath a mouldered tree,
A self-surviving leafless oak
By unregarded age from stroke
Of ravage saved-sate Emily.
There did she rest, with head reclined,
Herself most like a stately flower,
(Such have I Seen) whom chance of birth
Iath separated from its:-kind,
To live and die ina shady bower,
Single on the gladsome earth.
When, with a noise like distant thunder,
A troop of deer came sweeping by;
And, suddenly, behold a wonder I
For One, among those rushing deer,
A single One, in mid career
Hath stopped, and fixed her large full eye
Upon the Lady Emily;
A Doe most beautiful, clear-white,
A radiant creature, silverbright!
Thus checked, a little while it stayed;
A little thoughtful pause it rmade;
And then advanced with stealthti.ke pace,
Drew softly near her, and more nearLooked rotmd —but saw no cuse for fear;
So to her feet the Creature came,
And laid its head upon her knee,
And looked into the Ladyi facq
A look of pure benignity,
And fond uryclouded memory.




The White Doe of Rylstone              227
It is, thought Emily,:the samae,
The very Doe of other years! —
The pleading look the Lady viewed,
And, by her gushing thoughts subdued,
She melted into tears ---
A flood of tears, that flowed apace,
Upon the happy Creature's face.
Oh, moment ever blest i 0 Pair
Beloved of Heaven, Heaven's chosen care,
This was for you a precious greeting;
And may it prove a fruitful meeting1 -:
Joined are they, and the sylvan Doe
Can she depart? can she -forego
The Lady,' once her playful peer,
And now her:sainted Mistress dear?
And will not Emily receive
This lovely chronicler of things
Long past, delights and sorrowings.?
Lone Sufferer I will not she believe
The promise in that speaking face;
And welcome, as a gift of grace,
The saddest thought the Creature brings?
That day, the first of a re-union
Which was to teem with high communion,
That day of balmy April weather,
They tarried in the wood together.
And when), ere fail of evening dew,
She from her sylvan haunt wifhdrew,
The White Doe tracked with faithful pace
The Lady to her dwelling-place;
That nook where, on paternal ground,
A habitation she had found,
The Master of whose humble board:
Once owned her Father for his Lord;
A hut, by tufted trees defended,
Where Rylstone brook with Wharf is blended.
When Emily by morning light
Went forth, the Doe stood there in sight.
She shrunk: —with one frail shock of pain
Received and followed by a prayer,
She saw the Creatmre once agam;
Shun will she not, she feels, will bear; —
But, whetosoever she looked round,
All now was trouble-haunted ground;
And therefore -now she deems it good




228 The White Doe of Rylstone
Once more this restless neighbourhood
To leave.-Unwooed, yet unforbidden,
The White Doe followed up the vale,
Up to another cottage, hidden
In the deep fork of Amerdale;
And there may Emily restore
Herself, in spots unseen before.
-Why tell of mossy rock, or tree,
By lurking Dernbrook's pathless side,
Haunts of a strengthening amity
That calmed her, cheered, and fortified?
For she hath ventured now to read
Of time, and place, and thought, and deedEndless history that lies
In her silent Follower's eyes;
Who with a power like human reason
Discerns the favourable season,
Skilled to approach or to retire,From looks conceiving her desire;
From look, deportment, voice, or mien,
That vary to the heart within.
If she too passionately wreathed
Her arms, or over-deeply breathed,
Walked quick or slowly, every mood
In its degree was understood;
Then well may their accord be true,
And kindliest intercourse ensue.
-Oh! surely 'twas a gentle rousing
When she by sudden glimpse espied
The White Doe on the mountain browsing,
Or in the meadow wandered wide!
How pleased, when down the Straggler sank
Beside her, on some sunny bank!
How soothed, when in thick bower enclosed,
They, like a nested pair, reposed!
Fair Vision! when it crossed the Maid
Within some rocky cavern laid,
The dark cave's portal gliding by,
White as whitest cloud on high
Floating through the azure sky.
-What now is left for pain or fear?
That Presence, dearer and more dear,
While they, side by side, were straying,
And the shepherd's pipe was playing,
Did now a very gladness yield




The White Doe of Rylstone
At morning to the dewy field,
And with a deeper peace endued
The hour of moonlight solitude.
With her Companion, in such frame
Of mind, to Rylstone back she came;
And, ranging through the wasted groves,
Received the memory of old loves,
Undisturbed and undistrest,
Into a soul which now was blest
With a soft spring-day of holy,
Mild, and grateful, melancholy:
Not sunless gloom or unenlightened,
But by tender fancies brightened.
When the bells of Rylstone played
Their sabbath music-" o6ib ns a be! "
That was the sound they seemed to speak;
Inscriptive legend which I ween
May on those holy bells be seen,
That legend and her Grandsire's name;
And oftentimes theLady meek
Had in her childhood read the same;
Words which she sighted at that day;
But now, when such sad change was wrought,
And of that lonely name she thoughtThe bells of Rylstone seemed to say,
While she sate listening in the shade,
With vocal music ".tob as agbe; "
And all the hills'were glad to bear
Their part in this effectual prayer.
Nor lacked she Reason's firmest power;
But with the White Doe at her side
Up would she climb to Norton Tower,
And thence look round her far and wide,
Her fate there measuring;-all is stilled,The weak One hath subdued her heart;
Behold the prophecy fulfilled,
Fulfilled, and she sustains her part!
But here her Brother's words have failed;
Here hath a milder doom prevailed;
That she, of him and all bereft,
Hath yet this faithful Partner left;
This one Associate, that disproves
His words, remains for her, and loves.
If tears are shed, they do not fall
For loss of him-for one, or all;


229




23o    The White Doe of Rylstone
Yet, sometimes, sometimes doth she weep,
Moved gently in her soul's soft sleep;
A few tears down her cheek descend
For this her last and living Friend.
Bless, tender Hearts, their mutual lot,
And bless for both this savage spot;
Which Emily doth sacred hold
For reasons dear and manifold-.
Here hath she, here before her sight,
Close to the summit of this height,
The grassy rocklencircled Pound
In which the Creature first was found.
So beautiful the timid Thrall
(A spotless Youngling white as foam)
Her youngest Brother brought it home;
The youngest, then a lusty boy,
Bore it, or led, to Rylstone-hall
With heart brimful of pride and joy t
But most to Bolton's sacred Pile,
On favouring nights, she loved to go;
There ranged through cloister,- court, and aisle,
Attended by the soft-paced Doe;
Nor feared she in the still moonshine
To look upon Saint Mary's shrine;
Nor on the lonely turf that showed
Where Francis slept in his last abode.
For that she came; there oft she sate
Forlorn, but not disconsolate:
And when she from the abyss returned
Of thought, she neither shrunk nor mourned;
Was happy that she lived to greet
Her mute Companion as it lay
In love and pity at her feet;
How happy in its turn to meet
The recognition! the mild glance
Beamed from that gracious countenance;
Communication, like the ray
Of a new morning, to the nature
And prospects of the inferior Creature!
A mortal Song we sing, by dower
Encouraged of celestial power;
Power which the viewless Spirit shed
By whom we were first visited;
Whose voice we heard, whose hand and wings
Swept like a breeze the conscious strings,




The White      Doe of Rylstone
When, left in $plitude, erewhile
We stood before this ruined Pile,
And, quitting unsnbstantial drean,
Sang in this P-resence kindred themes;
Distre.ss and desolation spread
Through human hearts, and pleasure dead,Dead-but to live agai on n earth
A second and yet nobler birth;
Dire overthrow, and yet how high
The re-ascent in sanctity!
From fair to fairer; day by day
A more divine and loftier way!
Even such this blessed Pilgrim trod,
By sorrow lifted towards her God;
Uplifted to the purest sky
Of undisturbed mortality.
Her own thoughts loved she; and could bend
A dear look to her lowly Friend;
There stopped; her thirst was satisfied
With what this innocent spring supplied:
Her sanction inwardly she bore,
And stood apart from human cares:
But to the world returned no more,
Although with no unwilling mind
Help did she give at need, and joined
The Wharfdale peasants in their prayers.
At length, thus faintly, faintly tied
To earth, she was set free, and died.
Thy soul, exalted Emily,
Maid of the blasted family,
Rose to the God from whom it came!
-In Rylstone Church her mortal frame
Was buried by her Mother's side.
Most glorious sunset! and a ray
Survives-the twilight of this dayIn that fair Creature whom the fields
Support, and whom the forest shields;
Who, having filled a holy place,
Partakes, in her degree, Heaven's grace;
And bears a memory and a mind
Raised far above the law of kind;
Haunting the spots with lonely cheer
Which her dear Mistress once held dear:
Loves most what Emily loved mostThe enclosure of this churchyard ground;




232 The White Doe of Rylstone
Here wanders like a gliding ghost,
And every sabbath here is found;
Comes with the people when the bells
Are heard among the moorland dells,
Finds entrance through yon arch, where way
Lies open on the sabbath day;
Here walks amid the mournful waste
Of prostrate altars, shrines defaced,
And floors encumbered with rich show
Of fret-work imagery laid low;
Paces softly, or makes halt,
By fractured cell, or tomb, or vault;
By plate of monumental brass
Dim-gleaming among weeds and grass,
And sculptured Forms of Warriors brave:
But chiefly by that single grave,
That one sequestered hillock green,
The pensive visitant is seen.
There doth the gentle Creature lie
With those adversities unmoved;
Calm spectacle, by earth and sky
In their benignity approved!
And aye, methinks, this hoary Pile,
Subdued by outrage and decay,
Looks down upon her with a smile,
A gracious smile, that seems to say"Thou, thou art not a Child of Time,
But Daughter of the Eternal Prime!"




The Prelude


233


THE PRELUDE
OR, GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM1
BOOK FIRST
INTRODUCTION-CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME
OH 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
To none more grateful than to me; escaped
From the vast city, 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 o
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?
V/The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
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,?t;
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day
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),
Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
1 Commenced in the beginning of the year I799, and completed in
the Summer of I805. 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.-RYDAL MOUNT, July I3th, 1850.
1 2




234


The Prelude


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?:5,
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
I A correspondent breeze, that gently moved
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,
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!
\ '-Thus far, 0 Friend! 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
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
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
With brisk and eager steps; and came, at length,
To a green shady place, 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,
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




The Prelude


235


A perfect stillness. Many were the thoughts
Encouraged and dismissed, till choice was made
Of a known Vale, whither my feet should turn,
Nor rest till they had reached the very door
Of the one cottage which methought I saw.
No picture of mere memory ever looked
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,
Nor e'er lost sight of what I mused upon,
Save when, amid the stately grove 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.
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;
"IKeen as a Truant or a Fugitive,     \
But as a Pilgrim resolute, I took,
Even with the chance equipment of that hour,
The road that pointed toward the chosen Vale. )
It was a splendid evening, and my soul
Once more made trial of her strength, nor lacked
ZEolian visitations; but the harp
Was soon defrauded, and the banded host
Of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,
And lastly utter silence! "Be it so;
3'Why thinkof anything but presentood? "
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?
A pleasant loitering journey, through three days
Continued, brought me to my hermitage.
I spare to tell of what ensued, the life  i
{e In common things-the endless store of things,.:Rare, or at least so seeming, ev ery day
Found all about me in one neighbourhood —
The self-congratulation, and, from morn
To night, unbroken cheerfulness serene.
But speedily an earnest longing rose




236              The Prelude
To brace myself to some determined aim,
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,-^
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
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 Ao
Impediments from day to day renewed.
And now it would content me to yield up
Those loftyrhopes awhile, for present gifts
Of humbler industry. But, oh, dear Friend!
The Poet, gentle creature as he is,
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  tSits brooding, lives not always to that end,
But like'tihe innocent bird, hath goadings on
That drive her as in trouble through the groves;
2`Withjne is now such passion, to be blamed
No otaerwise'than as it lasts too long... 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
fi.  To lack that first great gift, the vitaul, s -
Nor g'eneral Truth'  which are themselves a sort
Of Elements a"n& Ag nksf- Under-powers,
Subordinate helpers of the living mindTa
INor a~ m I nalked of external things,
j Forms, images, nor numerous other aids
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




.    The Prelude                 237q
Are found in plenteous store, but nowhere such
As may be singled out with steady choice; '.No little band of yet remembered names
Whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope
To summon back from lonesome banishment,.And make themilers in the hearts of hen
Now living, or o live in f't'e years.  I
-Sometimes-the Ambitious Power od, io6ick, mistaking
Proud spring-tile swellings for a regular sea,  -
Will settle on.ome British theme, some cld  V
Romantic tate by Miltorleft-in, g"; ---More often tining to some gentle place. )T,
Within the groWVes of Chivalry, I pipe
To shepherd swaits, or seated harp in hancd
Amid reposing knights by.a river side
Or fountain, listen to-the grave reports
Of dire enchantments faced and overcome
By the strong mind, and tales of warlike feats,
Where spear encountered spear, and sword withsword
Fought, as if conscious of the blazonry
That the shield bore, so glorious was the strife;
Whence inspiration for a song that winds?
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.'
Sometimes, more sternly moved, I would relate  /
How vanquished Mithridates northward passed,  Vk
And, hidden in the cloud of years, became  A
Odin, the Father of a race by whom.
l.^'Perished the Roman Empire: how the friends
And followers of Sertorius, out of Spain
Flying, found shelter in the Fortunate Isles,
And left their usages, their arts and laws,
To disappear by a slow gradual death,,        ^
To dwindle and to perish one by one,         -
Starved in those narrow bounds: 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,
~6 Did, like a pestilence, maintain its hold
And wasted down by glorious death that race
Of natural heroes: or I would record
How, in tyrannic times, some high-souled man,




238               The    Prelude          --
Unnamed among the chronicles of kings,
Suffereclin silence for Truth's sake:; or tell,
How that one Frenchmnan,' through continued force
Of meditation on the inhuman deeds
--- '"~i Of those who conquered first the Indian Isles,
iWent Yngle in his ministry aC:o IJ-; ' I ' 2  The OCean; not to comfort the oppressed,
But, EkEi a ti'irsiy wind, to roam iabo'u
Withering the Oppressor: how Gitstavus sought
Help at his need in- Dalecarlia's mines:
How Wh'-ee4    t-ffo.4or'Scotland; l ft the name,
Of Wallace to be found, like a wilclower,
All over his dear Country; left t*,x deeds
Of Wallace, like a family of Gaktsts,
To People the steep rooks an  river bamks,
He' natura sanctuaries, with a local soul
-;I POJ independence and stern liberty./S)m-metimes it suits me better to invent
4 6. tale from.my own heart, more ndar akin.- 'to my own passions and habitual thoughts;
Some variegated story, in the main:\
Lofty, but the unsubstantial structure melts
Before the very sun that brightens it,..''     Mist into air dissolving! Then a wish,  'Y
i My last and favourite aspiration, mounts
T I  w Q  rfruththat cherishes our daily life
With meditations passionate from deep
Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse
oughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre;
But from this awful burthen I full soon
Take refuge and beguile myself with trust
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,
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
Locks every function up in blank-reserve,
1 Dominique de Gourgues, a French gentleman who went in 1568 to
Florida to avenge the massacre of the French by the Spaniards there.




The Prelude


239


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
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
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.
This is my lot; for either still I find
I 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
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, loved
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 -iiiis —'.
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
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
That yet survive, a shattered monument
Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed
Along the margin of our terrace walk;
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,




240


The Prelude


Made one long bathing of a summer's day;
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,
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
3ex: Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport
A naked savage, in the thunder shower.
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;-there were we let loose
t hd.-  For sports of wider range. Ere I had told
t'J i.!-  Ten birth-days, when among the mountain slopes
i      t  ~ Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped
f t k i The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy
With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung
To range the open heights where woodcocks run
Along the smooth green turf. 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,
And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befell
In these night wanderings, that a strong desire
O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird
Which was the captive of another's toil
Became my prey; and when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
37Z5 Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod., ~-   ~Nor less, when spring had warmed the cultured Vale,
2i      Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird
Had in high places built her lodge; though mean
cy'  Our object and inglorious, yet the end
Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung
Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock




The Prelude


24I


But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time
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
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,
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!
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 would use
Severer interventions, ministry
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, its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in
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,
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,
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




242


The Prelude


Went heaving through the water like a swan;,
When, from beind that craggy steep till then
The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
As if with voluntary power instinct,
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
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,
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,2      And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
-   Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
-.l i    There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
l ''  Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;:
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
ta; Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
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
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
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
With stinted kindness. In November days,
When vapours rolling down the valley made
A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods,
- i  At noon and 'mid the calm of summer nights,




The Prelude


243


When, by the margin of the trembling lake,
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
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 al of us-for me
~ -I" It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
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
And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
t:- And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;..
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; 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
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
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
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
i-Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.




244


The Prelude


Ye Presences of Nature in the sky
And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills!
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,
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,
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;
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,
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.
-Unfading recollections! at this hour
The heart is almost mine with which I felt,
From some hill-top on sunny afternoons,
The paper kite high among fleecy clouds
Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser;
Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,
Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly,::xl, Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.
Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt,
A ministration of your own was yours;
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




The Prelude                  245
Delights and exultations of your own.
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
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,
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.
Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few
Had changed their functions: some, plebeian cards
Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth,
Had dignified, and called to represent
The persons of departed potentates.
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
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
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,
Gave out to meadow grounds and hills a loud
Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves
Howling in troops along the Bothnic Main.
Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace
How Nature by extrinsic passion first
Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,
IAnd made me love them, may I here omit
How other pleasures have been mine, and joys
Of subtler origin; how I have felt,




246               The Prelude
k!Not seldom even in that tempestuous time,
> Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
Which seem, in their simplicity, to own
I An intellectual charm; that calm delight  I 'i"e
' Which, if I err not, surely must belong.,
To those first-born afftliati  S fitu O  pwr new e xistencgs t             -:,!And, in our dawn of being, constitute  -.: lThe bond of union between life and joy.  3:'1
Yes, I remember when the changeful earth,
And twice five summers on my mind had stamped
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
Of waters coloured by impending clouds.
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
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
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.
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
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
Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain




The Prelude
Nor profitless, if haply they impressed
Collateral objects and appearances,
Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep
Until maturer seasons called them forth
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
Depicted on the brain, and -to the eye
Were visible, a daily sight; and thiis
By the impressive discipline of fear,
By pleasure and repeated happiness,
So frequently repeated, and by force
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
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
Planting my snowdrops among winter snows:
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
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
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
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?


247




248              The Prelude
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
J 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
This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!
BOOK SECOND
SCHOOL-TIME (continued)
THUS far, 0 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
Was in its birth, sustained as might befall
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
C0 Prolonged in summer till the daylight failed:
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,
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
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
The eagerness of infantine desire?
A tranquillising spirit presses now
On my corporeal frame, so wide appears
The vacancy between me and those days
-7  Which yet have such self-presence in my mind,




The Prelude                  249
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
Or centre of these sports; 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,
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
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
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,
To sweep along the plain of Windermere
With rival oars; 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
With lilies of the valley like a field;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. In such a race
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,
Were tempered; thus was gradually produced
A quiet independence of the heart;
And to my Friend who knows me I may add,




250


The Prelude


Fearless of blame, that hence for future day'
Ensued a diffidence and modesty,
\ 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 ble;sing then
Of vigorous hunger-hence corporeal strength
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,
We came with weightier purles, that aufficed
To furnish treati 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
Or shady -foQntaina, 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,
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
Were distant:.sQoe famed temple where of yore
The Druids worshipped, or the antique walls
Of that large abbey, where within the Vale
Of Nightshade, to St. Mary's honour built,
Stands yet a mouldering pile with fractured arch,
-Belfry, 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
In that sequestered valley may be seern,
Both silent and both motionless alike;
Su.h the deep shelter that is there, and such
The safeguard for repose and quietness
Our steeds remounted and the summons givenr
With whip and spur we through the-chaubtry -flew




The Prelude                  251
In uncouth race, and left the crosslegged knight
And the stone-abbot, and that single wren
Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave
Of the old church, that-though from recent showers
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
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
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
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,
A tavern stood, no homely-featured house,
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
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,
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 handYet, to this hour, the spot to me is dear
With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay
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; nor did we want
Refreshment, strawberries and mellow cream.




252              The Prelude
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
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,
And rowed off gently, while he blew his flute,
Alone upon the rock-oh, then, the calm
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
j 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
liAnd surety of our earthly life, a light
IWhich we behold and feel we are alive;
Nor for his bounty to so many worldsBut for this cause, that I had seen him lay
His beauty on the morning hills, had seen
the western mountain touch his setting orb,
On 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
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,
Yea, appertained by a peculiar right
To thee and thy grey huts, thou one dear Vale!
Those incidental charms which first attached. My heart to rural objects, day by day
Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell
i 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,




The Prelude


253


Split like a province into round and square?
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?" Thou, my Friend! art one
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
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,
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
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,
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
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.
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
Too weak to gather it, already love
Drawn from love's purest earthly fount for him
Hath beautified that flower; already shades




;254


The Prelude


Of pity cast from inward tenderness
Do fall around him upon aught that bears
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
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
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,
Beginning not long after that first time
In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touchI held mute dialogues with my Mothers heart,
I have endeavoured to display the means
Whereby this infant sensibility,
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:
For now a trouble came into my mind
From unknown causes. I was left alone
Seeking the-visible world, not knowing. why.
The props of my affections were removed,
And yet the building stood, as if sustained
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
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,
Which, but for this most watchful power of love,
Had been neglected; left a register




The Prelude
Of permanent. relations, else unknown.  v
Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude:
More active ever than " best society " —
Society made sweet as solitude
By silent inobtrusive sympathies,
And gentle agitations of the mind
From manifold distitintolns difference
Perceived in things, wherey to the uatwatchful eye,
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 whatever there is of power in sound
To breathe an elevated mood, by form
Or image unprofaned; and I would stand,
If the night blackened with at 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.
Thence did I drink the visionary power;
And deem not profitlesss those fleeting moods
Of shadowy exultation  not for this,
That they are kindred to our purer mind
And intellectual life; but that the soul,
Remembering how she felt, but what she feIt
Remembering not: retains an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity, wheretoWith growing faculties she doth. aspire,
With faculties still growing, feeling still
That whatsoever point they gain, they yet  j
Have something to putsue,
And not alone,
'Mid gloom and tumult, but no less 'mid fair
And tranquil scenes, that universal power
And fitness in the latent qualities
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
I travelled round our little lake, five miles
Of pleasant wandering, Happy time! more dear
For this, that one was by my side, a Friend,1
Then passionately loved a with heart how full
Would he peruse these lines  For many years.1 The late Rev, John Fleming, of Rayrigg, Windermere.


255




256              The Prelude
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
Far earlier, ere one smoke-wreath had risen
From human dwelling, or the vernal thrush
Was audible; and sate among the woods
Alone upon some jutting eminence,
At the first gleam of dawn-light, when the Vale,
Yet slumbering, lay in utter solitude.
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
Appeared like something in myself, a dream,
A prospect in the mind.
'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
From sources inexhaustible, poured forth
To feed the spirit of religious love
In which I walked with Nature. CBut let this
Be not forgotten, that I still retained
My first creative sensibility;
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
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,
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,
And hence my transport.
Nor should this, perchance,
Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved
The exercise and produce of a toil,




The Prelude


257


Than analytic industry to me
More pleasing, and whose character I deem
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
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,
To unorganic natures 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.
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
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;
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,
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,
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,
Yet were I grossly destitute of all
Those human sentiments that make this earth
K




258


The Prelude


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
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
From little enmities and low desiresThe 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
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
Of dereliction and dismay, I yet
Despair not of our nature, but retain
A more than Roman confidence, a faith
That fails not, in all sorrow my support,
The blessing of my life-the gift is yours
Ye winds and sounding cataracts! 'tis yours,
Ye mountains! thine, 0 Nature'! Thou hast fed
My lofty speculations; and in thee,
For this uneasy heart of ours, I find
A never-failing principle of joy
And purest passion.
Thou, my Friend!I wert reared
In the great city, 'mid far other scenesBut we, by different roads, at length have gained
The selfsame-bourne. And for this cause to thee
I speak, unapprehensive of contempt,
The insinuated scoff of coward tongues,
And all that silent language: which so oft
In conversation between man and man
Blots from the human countenance all trace:
Of beauty and of love. For thou hast sought
The truth in solitude, and, since the days
That gave thee liberty, full long desired,
To serye in Nature's temple, thou hast been
The most assiduous of her ministers;
In many things my brother, chiefly here
In this our deep devotion.




The Prelude
Fare thee well!
Health and the quiet of a healthful mind
Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men,
And yet more often living with thyself,
And for thyself, so haply shall thy days
Be many, and a blessing to mankind.
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,
Extended high above a dusky grove.


259


Advancing, we espied upon the-road
A student clothed in gown and tasselled cap,
Striding along as if o'ertasked by Time,
_rx_ covetcfs of exercise and air;.
He passed-nor was I master of my eyes      '' 9  t; '4c[]:(:?i
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 foce.
Onward we^-i roveeneathtlheCtast ie; caught,
While crossing Magdalene Bridge, a glimpse of Cam;
And at the Hoo p alighted, famous Inn.


My spirit was up, my thoughts were full of hope;
Some friends I had, acquaintances who there
Seemed friends, poor simple schoolboys, now hung round
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 al1 sides; fresh day
Of pride and pleasure! to myself I seemed
A man of business and expense, and went
From shop to shop about my own affairs,
-TouTor-or-4QTilor, as befell,
From street to street with loose and Careless mind.
I was the Dreamer, they the7Dream; I roamed
Delighted through the motley spectacle;


I.0




260              The    Prelude
typ:-}8 -- -Weh  Ah  it ' ktCt f /t'l i.,
/Gowhns gravie, 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
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,
-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.
The Evangelist St. John my patron was;
Three Gothic courts are his, and in the first
Was my abiding-place-: anook obscure;  4cj
Right underneath, the College-kitchens made;0
A humming sound, less tuneable than bees,
But hardly less industrious; with shrill noi-t..,
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
Twice over with a male and female voice. -
Her pealing organ was my neighbour tooQ;
And from my pillow, looking forth by light
Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
The antechapel where the statue stood - -
Of Newton with his prism and silent face, R
The marble index of a mind -for ever -
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
Of College labours, of the Lecturer'sroom,
All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand,
With loyallstudents, 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 excqssive hopes,...
Tremblings withal and commendable fears,
Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad-  -
Let others that know more speak as they know.




The' Prelude                 26
Such glory was but little' sought by me, '.  -.
And little won. Yet from the first crude days
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,
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 larw
Deep in the conscience, nor of Christian Hope,
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
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
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 to0
A-higher language, say that now I felt
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 after years.
Asif awakened, summoned, roused, constrained,
I looked for universal things; perused
The common countenance of earth and sky:
Earth, nowhere unembellished by some trace
Of that first Paradise whence man was driven;
And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed
By the proud name she bears-the name of Heaven.
I called on both to teach me what they might;
Or, turning the mind in upon herself,
Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts
And spread them with a wider creeping; felt
Incumbencies more awful, visitings
Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul,
That tolerates the indignities of Time,




262


The Prelude


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
J    To such community with highest truthA. track pursuing, not untrod before, ) Ls
From strict analogies by thought supplied
Or consciousnesses not to be subdued.
To every natural form, rock, fruits, or flower,
Even the loose stones that cover the highway,
I gave a moral life: I saw them feel,
Or linked them to some feeling: the great mass
Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all
That I. beheld respired with. inward -meaning.
Add that whate'er -of Terror or of Love
Or Beauty, Nature's daily face put on
From transitory passion, unto this
I was as sensitive as waters'are
To the sky's influence in a kindred mood
Of passion; was obedient as a lute
That waits upon the touches of the wind..
0  Unknown, unthought of, yet 1 was most richI had a world about me-'twas my own;,I made it, for it only lived to me.       i
Gi     e God bre6     Td.,eat.
Such sympaiities, though rarelywere etrayed  I
By outward gestures and by.visible looks:
Some called it madness-so indeedit was,
If child-like fruitfulness in passing -joy,
If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured
To inspiration, sort with such a name;
If prophecy be madness; if things viewed
By poets in old time, and higher up
By the first men, earth's first inhabitants,
May in these tutored days no more be seen
With undisordered sight. But leaving this,
It was no madness, for the bodily eye
'Amid my strongest workings evermore
Was searching out the lines of difference
As they lie hid in all external forms,
Near or remote, minute or vast; an eye
Which, from a tree, a stone, a withered leaf,
To the broad ocean and the azure heavens
Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars,
Could find no surface-where its power might sleep;
7             -.




The Prelude


263


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
Up to an eminence, and told a tale
Of matters which not falsely may be called
The gloryof my youth. Of genius, power,
Creation and divinity itself
I have been speaking, for my theme has been
What passed,within me. Not of outward things
Done visibly for other minds, words, signs,
Symbols or actions, but of my own heart
Have I been speaking, and my youthful mind.
-— 0t   Heavens! how awful is the might of souls,
And what they do within themselves while yet
The yoke of earth is new to them, the world
Nothing but a-wild field where they'were sowr—.iThis is, in truth, heroic argument, '" -',;i-s- o::.
This genuine prowess, which I wished to touch? "4
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;  Ch~rc- +,X))
But is not each a memory to himself,             ~|,,
And, therefore, now that we must quit this themn,
I am not heartless; for there's not a man.
That lives who hath not known his god-like hour,  /
And feels not what, an empire we inherit          \
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
To follow, and if thou, my honoured Friend!
Who in these thoughts art everat my side, GLgo
Support, as heretofore, my fainting steps.
It-hath been told, that when the first delight
That flashed upon me from this novel show
Had failed, the mind returned into herself;
Yet true it is, that I had made a change
In climate, and my nature's outward coat
Changed also slowly and insensibly.




264


The-. Prelude


Full oft the quiet and exalted thoughts
Of loneliness gave way to empty noise
And superficial pastimes; now and then
Forced labour, and more frequently forced hopes;
And, worst of all, a treasonable growth
Of indecisive judgments, that impaired
And shook the mind's simplicity.-And yet.
This was a gladsome time.' - Could I beholdWho, less insensible than sodden clay
In- a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide,
Could have beheld,-with undelighted heart,
-So many happy youths, so wide and fair
A congregation in. its budding-time
Of health, and hope, and beauty, all at once
So-many. divers samples from the growth
Of life's sweet season-could have seen unmoved.
That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers
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,
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
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,
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.
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..ompanionshipst;
Friendships, acquaintances, were welcome all.;
We sauntered, played, or rioted; we talked-'
Ufiprofitable talk at morning hour';.-T2t'
Drifted about along the streets and.walks,.




The Prelude


265


Read lazily in trivial books, went forth
To gallop through the country in blinc zeal
Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast
Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars
Come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought.  S
Such was the tenor of the second act
In this new life. Imgination slept,
And yet not utterly. [I could not print tZ5
Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
Of generations of illustrious men,
Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass
Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept,
Wake where they waked, range that inclos re old,
That garden of great intellects, undisturbed. AJi
Place also by the side of this dark sense
Of noble feeling, that those spiritual men,
Even the great Newton's own ethereal self,
Seemed humbled in these precincts thence to be
The more endeared. Their several memories here'
(Even like their persons in their portraits clothed
With the accustomed garb of daily life)
Put on a lowly and a touching grace
Of more distinct humanity, that left
All genuine admiration unimpaired./I
( Beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington
I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade;
Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales
Of amorous passion. And that gentle Bard,
Chosen by the Muses for their Page of StateSweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven
With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace,
I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend!
\Yea, our blind Poet, who in his later day,
~tood almost single; uttering odious truthparkness before, and danger's voice behind,
Foul awful-if the earth has ever lodged
Ain awful soul-I seemed to see him here
TFamiliarly, 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,
f And conscious step of purity and pride.: Among the band of my compeers was one
K2




266


The Prelude


Whom.chance had stationed in the veryroom
Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard I
Be it confest that, for the first time, seated
Within thy innocent lodge and oratory,
One of a festive circle, I poured out
Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride 6b5
And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain:
Never excited by the fumes of wine
Before-that hour, or since.\ Then, forth I ran
From the assembly; through a length of streets,
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
No longer haunting the dark winter night.
Call back, O Friend! a moment to thy mind,
The place itself and fashion of the rites.
With careless ostentation shouldering up
My surplice, through the inferior throng I clove,
Of the.plain Burghers, who in audience stood
On the last skirts of their permitted ground,
Under the pealing organ. Empty thoughts t
I am ashamed of them: and that great Bard,
And thou, ' Friend! who in thy ample mind
Hast placed me high above my best deserts,
Ye will forgive the weakness of that hour,
In some of its unworthy vanities,
Brotherto many more.
In/this mixed sort
The months passed on, remissly, not given up
To wilful alienation from the right,
Or walks of open scandal, but in vague
And loose indifference, easy likings, aims
Of a low pitch-duty and zeal dismissed,
Yet-Nature, or a happy course of things
Not doing in their stead: the needful work.
The memory languidly revolved, the heart
Reposed in noontide rest, the inner pulse
Of contemplation almost failed to beat.
Such -life might not inaptly be compared
To a floating island, an amphibious spot
Unsound, of spongy texture, yet withal
Not wanting a fair face of water weeds
And pleasant flowers. The thirst of living praise,
Fit reverence for the glorious Dead, the sight




The Prelude                  267
Of those long vistas, sacred catacombs,
Where mighty minds lie visibly entombed,
Have often stirred the heart of youth, and bred
A fervent love of rigorous discipline.Alas! such high emotion touched not, me.
Look was, there none within these walls to shame
My easy spirits, and discountenance
Their light composure, far less to instil
A calm resolve of mind, firmly addressed
To puissant efforts. Nor was this the blame
Of others but my own; I should, in truth, ^ip
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 likethe wind,
As I had done in daily intercourse         k
With those crystalline rivers, solemn heights,  \
And mountains, ranging like a fowl of the air,
I was ill-tutored-for aptivity;           _
To quit my pleasure, and, from month to month,
Take up.a station calmly on the perch
Of sedentary peace. Those lovely forms
Had also left less space within my mind,
Which, wrought upon instinctively, had found
A freshness in those objects of her love,
x     winning power, beyond all other power.
F Not that I slighted books,-that were to lack SWg  -
ll sense,-but other passions in me ruled)
Passions more fervent, making me less prompt
To in-door study than was wise or well,
Or suited.to those years. Yet I, though used
In magisterial liberty to rove,
Culling such flowers of learning as might tempt
A random choice, could shadow forth a place
(If now I yield not to a flattering dream)
Whose studious aspect should have bent me down
To instantaneous service; should at once
Have made me pay to science and to arts
And written lore, acknowledged my liege lord,
A homage frankly offered up, like that
Which I had paid to Nature. Toil and pains
In this recess, by thoughtful Fancy built,
Should spread from heart to heart; and stately groves,
Majestic edifices, should not want
A correspondf  dignity within.
al




268               The Prelude
The congregating temper that pervades
Our unripe years, not wasted, should be taught
To minister to works of high attemptWorks which the enthusiast would perform with love.
Youth should be awed, religiously possessed
With a conviction of the power that waits
On knowledge, when sincerely sought and prized
For its own sake, on glory and on praise
If but by labour won, and fit to endure
The passing day; should learn to put aside
Her trappings here, should strip them off abashedtl
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,
Republican or pious.
If these thoughts
Are a gratuitous emblazonry
That.mocks the recreant age We live in, then
Be Folly and False-seeming freeto affect
Whatever formal gait of discipline
Shall raise them highest in their own esteemLet 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?
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
Give seasonable rest, for 'tis a sound
Hollow as ever vexed the tralquil air;
And your officious doings bring disgrace
On the plain steeples of our English Church,
Whose worship, 'fnid remotest village trees,
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.
This truth escaped me'not, nd I confess, [41
That having 'mid my nativehills given loose
To a schoolboy's vision, I had raised a pile
Upon the basis of the coming time,




The Prelude


269


That fell in ruins round me. Oh, what joy
To see a sanctuary for our country's youth
Informed with such a spirit as mightbe
Its own protection,; a primeval grove,
Where, though the shades with cheerfulness were filled,
Nor indigent of songs warbled from crowds
In under-coverts, yet the countenance
Of the whole place should bear astamp of awe;
A habitation sober and demure
For ruminating creatures; a domain
For quiet things to wander in; a haunt
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; tijp
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,
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
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 labqlir, and plain weeds.
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,
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,
Where, pensioned, they in shelter might sit down,
From town to town and through:wide scattered realms
Journeyed with ponderous folios in their hands;




270


The Prelude


And often, starting from some covert place,
Saluted the chance comer on the road,
Crying, "An obolus, a penny give
To a poor scholar! "-when illustrious men,
Lovers of truth, by penury constrained,
Bucer, Erasmus, or Melancthon, read
Before the doors or windows of their cells
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,
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,
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
No lower than I fell.  did not love,
- `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
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.
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
IWith 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,)




The Prelude                  271
Like a lone shepherd on a promontory,
Who lacking occupation looks far forth
Into the boundless sea, and rather makes
Than finds what he beholdsJ And sure it is,
That this first transit from the smooth delights
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,
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
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
(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
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 unscoured, grotesque
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
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,
As some might seem, so aptly do they serve
To illustrate Nature's book of rudimentsThat book upheld as with maternal care
When she would enter on her tender scheme




272              The Prelude
Of teaching comprehension with delight,
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;
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
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
At wake or fair. And oftentimes do flit
Remembrances before me of old menOld humourists, who have been long in their graves,
And having almost in my mind put off
Their human names, have into phantoms passed
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,
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 meAnd 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
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,
And poor misguided Shame, and witless Fear,
And simple Pleasure foraging for Death; -




The Prelude


273


Honour misplaced, and Dignity astray;
Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile,
Murmuring submission, and bald government,
(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
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
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
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,
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,
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.
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
Standing alone, as from a rampart's edge,
I overlooked the bed of Windermere,
Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.




274              The Prelude
With exultation, at my feet I saw
Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays,
A universe of Nature's fairest forms
Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst,
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,
I did not step into the well-known boat
Without a cordial greeting. Thence with- speed
Up the familiar hill I took my way
Towards that sweet Valley I where I had been reared;
'Twas but a short hour's walk, ere veering round
I saw the snow-white church upon her hill
Sit like a throned Lady, sending out
A gracious look all over her domain.
Yon azure smoke betrays the lurking town;
With eager footsteps I advance and reach
The cottage threshold where my journey closed.
Glad welcome had I, with some tears,-perhaps,
From my old Dame, so kind and motherly,
While she perused me with a parent's pride.
The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew
Upon thy grave, good creature 1 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
Of calm enjoyments, after eighty years,.
And more than eighty, of untroubled life;
Childless, yet by the strangers to thy blood
Honoured with little less than filial love.
What joy was mine to see thee once again,
Thee and thy dwelling, and a crowd of things
About its narrow precincts all beloved,
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?
The rooms, the court, the garden were not left
Long unsaluted, nor the sunny seat
Round the stone table under the dark pine,
Friendly to studious or to festive hours;
Nor that unruly child of mountain birth,
1 Hawkshead.




The Prelude                  275
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
(Without an effort and without a will)
'A channel paved by man's officious care.
I looked at him and smiled, and smiled again,
And in the press of twenty thousand thoughts,
" Ha," quoth I, "pretty prisoner, are you there!"
Well might sarcastic Fancy then have whispered,
"An emblem here behold of thy own life;
In its late course of even days with all
7Their smooth enthralment;" but the heart was full,
Too full for that reproach. My aged Dame
Walked proudly at my side: she guided me;
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
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,
The transformation wrought by gay attire.
Not less delighted did I take my place
At our domestic table: and, dear Friend!
In this endeavour simply to relate
A Poet's history, may I leave untold
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
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 war our cottage stood,;
Had watched her with fixed eyes while to and fro
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




276              The Prelude
Our inmate, a rough terrier of the hills;
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
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
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,
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 loose
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 else
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 hushed
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.
Those walks well worthy to be prized and lovedRegretted!-that word, too, Ws on my tongue,
But.they were richly laden with all good,
And cannot be remembered but with thanks
And gratitude, and perfect joy of heartThose walks in all their freshness now came back
Like a returning Spring. When first I made
Once more the circuit of our little lake,




The Prelude


277


If ever happiness hath lodged with man,
That day consummate happiness was mine,
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:
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
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,
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,, 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;
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:
/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
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
The long lake lengthened out its hoary line,
And in the sheltered coppice where I sate,
Around me from among the hazel leaves,




278              The Prelude
Now here, now there, moved by the straggling wind,
Came ever and anon a breath-like sound,
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.
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
After an eight-days' absence. For (to omit
The things which were the same and yet appeared
Far otherwise) amid this rural solitude,
A narrow Vale where each was known to all,
'Twas not indifferent to a youthful mind
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;
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
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,
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,)
A mantle such as Spanish Cavaliers
Wore in old times. Her smooth domestic life,
Affectionate without disquietude,
Her talk, her business, pleased me; and no less
Her clear though shallow stream of piety  E
That ran on Sabbath days a fresher cours;




The   Prelude                279
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.
Nor less do I remember to have felt,
i 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;
\ Which I had loved, even as a blessed spirit
IOr 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,
A pensive ffeeling! It spread far and wide;
The trees, the mountains shared it, and the brooks,
The stars of Heaven, now seen in their old hauntsWhite Sirius glittering o'er the southern crags,
Orion with his belt, and those fair Seven,
Acquaintances of every little child,
And Jupiter, my own beloved star I
Whatever shadings of mortality,
Whatever imports from the world of death
Had come among these objects heretofore,
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.
T As one who hangs down-bending from the side
I Of a slow-moving boat. upon the breast
i Of a still water, solacing himself
I With such discoveries as his eye can make
Beneath him in the bottom of the deep,
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
Of the clear flood, from things which there abide
In their true dwelling; now is crossed by gleam
Of his own image, by a sunbeam now,
And wavering motions sent he knows not whence,




280


The Prelude;


Impediments that make his task more sweet;
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!
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
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
Of manliness and freedom) all conspired? To lure my mind from firm habitual quest
Of feeding pleasures, to depresssh te zeal
And damp those yearnings, which had once been mineA wild, unwol-dly-minded youth, given up
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
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
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
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,
A medley of all tempers, I had passed
The night in dancing, gaiety, and mirth,
With din of instruments and shuffling feet,




The Prelude                  28
And glancing forms, and tapers glittering,
And unaimed prattle flying up and down;
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
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,
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 —
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
And labourers going forth to till the fields.
j Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim
i My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows  "
i Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit. On I walked
In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.
Strange rendezvous! My mind was at that time
A parti-coloured show of grave and gay,
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,
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
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,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,




282


The Prelude


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,
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;
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
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
To a late hour), and spirits overwrought
Were making night do penance for a day
Spent in a round of strenuous idlenessMy homeward course led up a long ascent,
Where the road's watery surface, to the top
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. All else-was still;
No living thing appeared in earth or air,
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,
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
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,




The Prelude


283


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
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,
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
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,
He told in few plain words a soldier's taleThat 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.
This heard, I said, in pity, "(Come with me."
He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up
An oaken staff by me yet unobservedA staff which must have dropped from his slack hand
And lay till now neglected in the-grass.
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
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,
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




284              The:Prelude
Soon ended, and together on we passed.- d  -
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
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,
And 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: "
The cottagedoor 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
The farewell blessing of the patient man,
3. 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.
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
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
That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto,
In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked
Upon the- speaking face of earth and heaven
As her prime teacher, intercourse with man
Established by the sovereign Intellect,
Who through that bodily image hath diffused,




The Prelude


285


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;
And yet we feel-we cannot choose but feelThat they must perish.. Tremblings of the heart
It gives, to think that our immortal being
No more shall need such garments; and yet man,
As long as he shall be the child of earth,
Might almost 'weep to have " what he may lose,
Nor be himself-extinguished, but survive,
Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate.
A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes
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
j Victorious, and composure would ensue,
And kindlings like the morning-presage sure
Of day returning and of life revived.
But all the meditations of mankind,
Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth
' By reason built, or passion, which itself
Is highest reason in a soul sublime;
The consecrated works of Bard and Sage,
Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men,
Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes;
Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind
Some element to stamp her image on
In nature somewhat nearer to her own?
Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad
Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?
One day, when from my lips a like complaint
Had fallen in presence of a studious friend,
He with a smile made answer, that in truth
'Twas going far to seek disquietude;
But on the front of his reproof confessed
That he himself had oftentimes given way
To kindred hauntings. Whereupon I told,
That once in the stillness of a summer's noon,
While I was seated in a rocky cave
By the.sea-side, perusing, so it chanced,
The famous history of the errant knight




286              The Prelude
Recorded by Cervantes, these'same thoughts
Beset me, and to height unusual rose,
While listlessly I sate, and, having closed
The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea.
On poetry and geometric truth,
And their high privilege of lasting life
From all internal injury exempt,
I mused; upon these chiefly: and at length,
My senses yielding to the sultry air,
Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream.
I saw before me stretched a boundless plain
Of sandy wilderness, all black and void,
And as I looked around, distress and fear
Came creeping over me, when at my side,
Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared
Upon a dromedary, mounted high.
He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes:
A lance he bore, and underneath one arm
A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell
Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight
Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide
Was present, one who with unerring skill
Would through the desert lead me;. and while yet
I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight
Which the new-comer carried through the waste
Could mean, the Arab told me- that the stone
(To give it in the language of the dream)
Was " Euclid's Elements," and "This," said he,
"Is something of more worth;" and at the word
Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape,
In colour so resplendent, with command
That I should hold it to my ear. -I did so,
And heard that instant in an unknown tongue,
Which yet I understood, articulate sounds,
A loud prophetic blast of harmony-;'
An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold
Destruction to the children of the earth
By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased
The song, than: the Arab with calm -look declared
That all would come to pass of which the voice
Had given forewarning, and that he himself
Was going then to bury those two books:
The one that held acquaintance with the stars;
And wedded soul to soul in purest bond
Of reason,. undisturbed- by space or time;




The Prelude


287


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,
I wondered not, although I plainly saw
The one to be a stone, the other a shell;
Nor doubted once but that they both were books,
Having a perfect faith in all that passed.
Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt
To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed
To share his enterprise, he hurried on
Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen,
For oftentimes he cast a backward look,
Grasping his twofold treasure.-Lance in rest,
He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
He, to my fancy, had become the knight
Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight,
But was an Arab of the desert too;
Of these was neither, and was both at once.
His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed
And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes
Saw, over half the wilderness diffused,
A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause:
" It is," said he, " the waters of the deep
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 hisgrasp, before me, full in view,
Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste,
With the fleet waters of a drowning world
In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror,
And saw the sea before me, and the book,
In which I had been reading, at my side.
Full often, taking from the world of sleep
This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld,
This semi-Quixote, I to him have given
A substance, fancied him a living man,
A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed
By love and feeling, and internal thought
Protracted among endless solitudes;
Have shaped him wandering upon this quest!
Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt




288


The Prelude


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.
Enow there are on earth to take in charge
Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves,
Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear;
Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say,
Contemplating in soberness the approach
Of an event so dire, by signs in earth
Or heaven made manifest, that I could share
That maniac's fond anxiety, and go
Upon like errand. Oftentimes at leastMe hath such strong entrancement overcome,
When I have held a volume in my hand,
Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,
Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine!
Great and benign, indeed, must be the power
Of living nature, which could thus so long
Detain me from the best of other guides
And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised,
Even in the time of lisping infancy;
And later down, in prattling childhood even,
While I was travelling back among those days,
How could I ever play an ingrate's part?
Once more should I have made those bowers resound,
By intermingling strains of thankfulness
With their own thoughtless melodies; at least
It might have well beseemed me to repeat
Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again,
In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale
That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now.
O Friend! 0 Poet! brother of my soul,
Think not that I could pass along untouched.
By these remembrances. Yet wherefore speak?
Why iall upon a few weak words to say
What is already written in the hearts
Of all that breathe?-what in the path of-all.
Drops daily from the tongue of every child,
Wherever man is found? The trickling tear
Upon the cheek of listening Infancy -..;
Proclaims it, and the insuperable look  ' -
That drinks as if it never could be full.';:
That portion of my story I shall leave: -
There registered: whatever else of power;:.




The Prelude                   289
Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be
Peculiar to myself, let that remain
Where still it works, though hidden from all search
Among the depths of time. Yet is it just
That here, in memory of all books which lay
Their sure foundations in the heart of man,
Whether by native prose, or numerous verse,
That in the name of all inspired soulsFrom Homer the great Thunderer, from the voice
That roars along the bed of Jewish song,
And that more varied and elaborate,
Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake
Our shores in England,-from those loftiest notes
Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made
For cottagers and spinners at the wheel,
And sun-burnt travellers resting their tired limbs,
Stretched under wayside hedge-rows, ballad tunes,
Food for the hungry ears of little ones,
And of old men who have survived their joys'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works,
And of the men that framed them, whether known
Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves,
That I should here assert their rights, attest
Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce
Their benediction; speak of them as Powers
For ever to be hallowed; only less,
For what we are and what we may become,
Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God,.
i Or His pure Word by miracle revealed.
Rarely and with reluctance would I stoopTo transitory themes; yet I rejoice,
And, by these thoughts admonished, will pour out
Thanks with uplifted heart, that I was reared
Safe from an evil which these days have laid
Upon the children of the land, a pest
That might have dried me up, body and soul.
This verse is dedicate to Nature's self,
And things that teach as Nature teaches: then,
Oh! where had been the Man, the Poet where,
Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend!
If in the season of unperilous choice,
In lieu of wandering, as we did, through vales
Rich with indigenous produce, open ground
'Of Fancy, happy pastures ranged at will, -
L




290               -The Prelude
We had been followed, hourly watched, and noosed,Each in his several melancholy walk
Stringed like a poor man's heifer at its feed,
Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude;
Or rather like a stalled ox debarred
From touch of growing grass, that may not taste
A flower till it have yielded up its sweets
A prelibation to the mower's scythe.
Behold the parent hen amid her brood,
Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part
And straggle from her presence, still a brood,
And she herself from the maternal bond
Still undischarged; yet doth she little more
Than move with them in tenderness and love,
A centre to the circle which they make;
And now and then, alike from need of theirs
And call of her own natural appetites,
She scratches,- ransacks up the earth for food,
Which they- partake at pleasure.- Early died
My honoured Mother,- she who was the heart
And hinge of all our learnings and our loves:
She left us destitute, and, as we might,.
Trooping together.. Little suits it me
To break upon the sabbath; of her rest
With any thought that looks at others':blame-;
Nor would I praise her but in perfect love.
Hence am I checked: but let me boldly say,
In gratitude, and for the sake of truth,:
Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught,
Fetching her goodness rather from times past,
Than shaping novelties for times to come,
Had no presumption, no such jealousy,.
Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust
Our nature, but had-virtual faith that He
Who fills the mother's breast with innocent milk,
Doth also for our nobler part provideUnder His great correction and control,
As innocent instincts, and as innocent food;
Or draws, for minds that are-left free. to trust
In the simplicities of opening life,
Sweet honey out of spurned or dreaded weeds.
This was her creed,- and therefore she was pure:
From anxious fear of error or mishap,
And evil, overweeningly so called;




Th6e Prelude
Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes,
Nor selfish with unnecessary cares,
Nor with impatience from the season -asked
More than its timely produce; rather loved
The hours for what they are, than from regard
Glanced on their promises in restless pride.
Such was she-not from faculties more strong -
Than others have, but from the times, perhaps,
And spot in which she lived, and through a grace
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,
J 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
Its dignity;. with gifts he bubbles o'er
As generous as a fountain; selfishness
May not come- near him, nor the little throng
Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path;
The wandering beggars propagate his name,
Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun,
And natural or supernatural fear,
Unless it leap upon him in a dream,
Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see
How arch his notices, how nice his sense
Of the ridiculous; not blind is he
To the broad follies of the licensed world,
Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd,
And can read lectures upon innocence;
A miracle of scientific lore,
Ships he can guide across the pathless-sea, -'
And tell you all their cunning; he can read
The inside of the earth, and spell the stars;
He knows the policies of foreign lands  -
Can string you names of districts, cities, towns,
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:. -


291L




292


The:.Prelude


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
Which he could truly love; but how-escape?
For, ever as a thought of purer birth
Rises to lead him toward a better clime,
Some intermeddler still is on the: watch
To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray,!Within the pinfold of his own conceit.
Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find
The playthings, which her love. designed for him,
Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers
Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn.
Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap
Of Fortunatus,. and the invisible coat
Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,
'And Sabra in the forest with St. George!:
The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap
One precious gain, that he forgets himself.
These mighty workmen of our later age,
Who, with a broad highway, have overbridged
The froward chaos of futurity,
Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill
To manage books, -and things, and make them act
On infant minds as surely as the sun
Deals with a flower; the keepers of our time,
The guides and wardens of-our faculties,
Sages who in their prescience would control
All accidents, and to the very road
Which they have fashioned would confine us down,
Like engines;: when will their presumption learn,
That in the unreasoning progress of the world:
A wiser spirit is at work for us,;-  -
A better eye than theirs, most prodigal::Of blessings, and most studious of our good,
Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours?
There was a Boy ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander!-many a time:
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,.  -
Rising or setting, would he stand alone:



The Prelude                  293
Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake,
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
That they might answer him; and they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud,
Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild
Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause
Of silence came and baffled his best skill,
Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind,
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.
This Boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale
Where he was born; the grassy churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village school,
And through that churchyard when my way has led
On summer evenings, I believe that there
A long half hour together I have stood
Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies!
Even now appears before the mind's clear eye
That self-same village church; I see her sit
(The throned Lady whom erewhile we hailed)
On her green hill, forgetful of this Boy
Who slumbers at her feet,-forgetful, too,
Of all her silent neighbourhood of graves,
And listening only to the gladsome sounds
That, from the rural school ascending, play
Beneath her and abouther. 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)A race of real children; not too wise,
Too learned, or too good: but wanton, fresh,




294-             The Prelude
And bandied up and down by love and hate;Not unresentful where.self-justified;
Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy;.
Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds;
Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft.
Bending beneath our life's mysterious weight
Of pain, and doubt,.and fear, yet yielding not
In happiness to the happiest upon earth.
4.Simplicity in habit, truth in speech,
Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds;
May books and Nature be their early joy!
And knowledge, rightly honoured with that name —
Knowledge not purchased by-the loss of power:!
Well do I call to mind the very week:
When I was first intrusted to the care
Of that sweet Valley; when its paths, its shores,
And brooks were like a dream of novelty
To my half-infant thoughts; that very week,
While I was roving up and down alone,,-.Seeking I knew not what, I chanced to cross
One of tho-se open fields, which, shaped like ears,
Make green peninsulas on Esthwaite's Lake:
Twilight was coming on, yet through the gloom.
Appeared. distinctly on the opposite shore.
A heap of garments, as if left by one. -..
Who might have there been bathing. Long I watched,
But no one owned them-; meanwhile the calm lake
Grew dark with all the shadows on its breast,
And, now and then, a fish up-leaping snapped
The breathless stillness. The succeeding day,
Those unclaimed garments telling a plain tale
Drew to the spot an anxious crowd; some looked
In passive expectation from the- shore,
While from a boat others hung o'er the deep,
Sounding with grappling irons and-long poles.
At last, the dead man, 'mid that beauteous scene
Of trees and hills and water, bolt upright
Rose, with his ghastly face, a spectre shape
I Of terror; yet no soul-debasing fear,
i Young as I was, a child not nine years old,! Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen
Such sights before, among the shining streams
Of faery land, the forest of romance.
Their spirit hallowed the sad spectacle




The: Prelude


295


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,
A little yellow, canvas-covered book,
A slender abstract of the Arabian tales;
And, from companions in a new abode,
When first I learnt, that this dear prize of mine
Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry —
That there were four large volumes, laden all
With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth,
A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly,
With one not richer than myself, I made
A covenant that each should lay aside
The moneys he possessed, and hoard up more,
Till our joint savings. had amassed enough
To make this book our own. Through several months,
In spite of all temptation, we preserved
Religiously that vow; but firmness failed,
Nor were we ever masters of our wish.
And when thereafter to my father's house
The holidays returned me, there to find
That golden store of books which I had left,
What joy was mine.! How often in the course
Of those glad respites, though a soft west wind
Ruffled the waters to the angler's wish,
For a whole day together, have I lain
Down by thy side, O Derwent! murmuring stream,
On the hot stones, and in the glaring sun,
And there have read, devouring as I read,
Defrauding the day's glory, desperate!
Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach,
Such as an idler deals with in his shame,
I to the sport betook myself again.
A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides,
And o'er the heart of man; invisibly
It comes, to works of unreproved delight,
And tendency benign, directing those
Who care not, know not, think not, what they do.
The tales that charm away the wakeful night
In Araby, romances; legends penned
For solace by dim light of monkish lamps;
Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised




296:


The Prelude


By youthful squires; adventures endless, 'spun
By the dismantled warrior in old- age,
Out of the bowels of those very schemes
In which his youth did first extravagate;
These spread like day, and something in the shape
Of these will live till man shall be no more.
-Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours,
And they must have their food. Our childhood sits,
Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
That hath more power than all the elements.
I guess not what this tells of Being past,
Nor what it augurs of the life to come;
But so it is; and, in that dubious hourThat twilight-when we first begin to see
This dawning earth, to recognise, expect,
And, in the long probation that ensues,
The time of trial, ere we learn to live
In reconcilement with our stinted powers;
To endure this state of meagre vassalage,
Unwilling to forego, confess, submit,
Uneasy and unsettled, yoke-fellows
To custom, mettlesome, and not yet tamed
And humbled down-oh! then we feel, we feel,
We know where we have friends. Ye dreamers, then,
Forgers of daring tales! we bless you then,
Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape
Philosophy will call you: then we feel
With what, and how great might ye are in league,
Who make our wish, our power, our thought a deed,
An empire, a possession,-ye whom time
And seasons serve; all Faculties to whom
Earth crouches, the elements are potter's clay,
Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights,
Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at once.
Relinquishing this lofty eminence
For ground, though humbler, not the less a tract
Of the same isthmus, which our spirits cross
In progress from their native continent
To earth and human life, the Song might dwell
On that delightful time of growing youth,
When craving for the marvellous gives way
To strengthening love for things that we have seen;
When sober truth and steady sympathies,
Offered to notice by less daring pens,




The Prelude


297


Take firmer hold of us and words themselves
l ove us with conscious pleasure.
I am sad
At thought of rapture now for ever flown;
Almost to tears I sometimes could be sad
To think of, to read over, many a page,
Poems withal of name, which at that time
Did never fail to entrance me, and are now
Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre
Fresh emptied of spectators. Twice five years
Or less I might have seen, when first my mind
With conscious pleasure opened to the charm
Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet
For their own sakes, a: passion, and a power;
And phrases pleased me chosen for delight,
For pomp, or love. Oft, in the public roads
Yet unfrequented, while the morning light
Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad
With a dear friend, and for the better part
Of two delightful hours we strolled along
By the still borders of the misty lake,
Repeating favourite verses with one voice,
Or conning more, as happy as the birds
That round us chaunted. Well might we be glad, '
Lifted above the ground by airy fancies,  "S
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,
Yet was there surely then no vulgar power
Working within us,-nothing less,in truth,:/ Than that most noble~atributetof man,
c-;Though yet untutored and inordinate,
TEha                 lier, more-de
Than is the common aspect, daily garb,
Of human ife-.^ —hatonde-r-hen,  sounds  a
Of exultation echoed through the groves!
For,- izmageys~X-.adentim ents,(.sAnfdeverything encountered or pursued...
In that delicious world of poesy, - B
Keptholiiay, a never-endi-ng show,
With music, incense festival,;anaflowers!
Here must we pause: this only let me add,:.
From heart-experience, and in humblest sense
Of modesty, that he, who in his youth
L2




298               The PreludeA daily wanderer among woods and fields
With living Nature hath been intimate,-:.:
Not only in that raw unpractised time
Is stirred to ecstasy, as others are,
By glittering verse; but further, doth receive,
In measure only dealt out to himself,
Knowledge and increase of enduring joy
From the great Nature that exists in works
Of mighty Poets. Visionary power
Attends the motions of the viewless winds,
Embodied in the mystery of words:
There, darkness makes abode, and all the host
Of shadowy things work endless changes,-there,
As in a mansion like their proper home,
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.
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,
Went back to Granta's cloisters, 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
Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern;
Quitted, not loth, 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,
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
Relaxing in their hold, henceforth I lived




The Prelude"                 299
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. I was detached -
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
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 tellWho 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,
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,
No few of which have since been realised;
And some remain, hopes for my future life.
Four years and thirty, told this very week, '
Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me
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 slightly touched
By such a daring thought, thatI -might leave
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:
Of mighty names was softened down and seemed -
Approachable, admitting fellowshipOf modest sympathy. Such aspect now,
Though not familiarly, my mind put on,
Content to observe, to achieve, and to -enjoy.




300              The Prelude
All winter long, whenever free to choose,
Did I by night frequent the College grove
And tributary walks; the last, and oft
The only one, who had been lingering there
Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell,
A punctual follower on the stroke of nine,
Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice;
Inexorable summons! Lofty elms,  *
Inviting shades of opportune recess,
IBestowed composure on a neighbourhood
-,UJnpeaceful in itself. A single tree
With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed,
i Grew there; an ash which Winter for himself
Decked out with pride, and with outlandish grace:
Up from the ground, and almost to the top,
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
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,
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
'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,
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,
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 Prelude                  301
The dangerous craft, of culling term and phrase
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
The pleasure gathered from the rudiments
Of geometric science. Though advanced
In these enquiries, with regret I speak,
No farther than the threshold, there I found
Both elevation and composed delight:
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
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
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,
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 peacel
And silence did await upon these thoughts
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,
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)
To spots remote, and draw his diagrams
With a long staff upon the sand, and thus




302


'The Prelude


Did oft beguile his sorrow, and: almost
Forget his feeling: so (if like effect
From the same cause produced, 'mid outward things
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,
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
In verity, an independent world,
Created out of pure intelligence.Such dispositions then were mine unearned
By aught,: I fear, of genuine desertMine, through heaven's grace and inborn aptitudes.
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;
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
Of the Enchanter Indolence-hath called
Good-natured lounging," 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
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,
Or scenes renowned for beauty, I explored
That streamlet whose blue current works its way
Between romantic Dovedale's spiry rocks;
Pried into Yorkshire dales, or hidden tracts -: -i
Of my own native region, and was blest.:




The Prelude                  303
Between these sundry wanderings with a joy
Above all joys, that seemed another morn
Risen on mid noon; blest with the presence, Friend
Of that sole Sister, her who hath been long.
Dear to thee also, thy true friend and mine,
Now, after separation desolate,
Restored to me-such absence that she seemed
A gift then first bestowed. The varied banks
Of Emont, hitherto unnamed in song,
And that monastic castle, 'mid tall trees,
Low standing by the margin of the stream,
A mansion visited (as fame reports)
By Sidney, where, in sight of our Helvellyn,
Or stormy Cross-fell, snatches he might pen
Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love I
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
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, -
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, 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;
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
In all that neighbourhood, through narrow lanes.
Of eglantine, and through the shady woods,
And o'er the Border Beacon, and the waste
Of naked pools, and common crags that lay
Exposed on the bare fell, were scattered love,
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.




304               The Prelude
Far art thou wandered now in search- of health
And milder breezes, -melancholy lot!
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,
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
Of gales Etesian or of tender thoughts.
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
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
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,
Who, yet- a liveried schoolboy, in the depths
Of the huge city, on the leaded roof
Of that wide edifice, thy school and home,
Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds
Moving in heaven; or, of that pleasure tired,
To shut thine eyes, and by internal light
See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream,
Far distant, thus beheld from year to year
Of a long exile. - Nor could I: forget,
In this late portion of my argument,
That scarcely, as my term of pupilage
Ceased, had I left those academic bowers
When thou wert thither guided. From the heart
Of London, and from cloisters there, thou camest,
And didst sit down in temperance and peace,
A rigorous student. What a stormy course
Then followed. Oh! it is a pang that calls
For utterance, to think what easy change




The Prelude                 305
Of circumstances might to thee have spared
A world of pain, ripened a thousand hopes,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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
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
With livelier hope a region wider far.
When the third summer freed us from restraint,
A youthful friend, he too a mountaineer,
Not slow to share my wishes, took his staff,
And sallying forth, we journeyed side by side,
Bound to the distant Alps. A hardy slight,




306              -The:Prelude
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,
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.
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,
And human nature seeming born again.'
Lightly equipped, 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
Of that great federal day; 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.: Southward thence
We held our way, direct through hamlets, towns,
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,
Among sequestered. villages we-walked
And found benevolence and blessedness.
Spread like a fragrance everywhere, when springHath left no corner of the land untouched;
Where elms for many and many a league in files
With their thin umbrage, on the stately roads
Of that great.kingdom, rustled o'er our heads,:
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,
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




The Prelude                  307
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 hillsThe vine-clad hills and slopes of Burggnly,
Upon the bosom of the gentle Saone
We glided forward with the flowing stream.
Swift Rhone! thou wert the wings on which we cut
A winding passage with majestic ease
Between thy lofty rocks. Enchanting show
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
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.
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,
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;
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;
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,
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




Io8


The Prelude


Of this glad throng, foot-travellers side by side,
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:
Yes; for even then no other than a place
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
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 I "-The voice
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!"
She ceased to speak, but while St. Bruno's pines
Waved their dark tops, not silent as they- waved,
And while below, along their several beds,
Murmured the sister streams of Life and Death,
Thus by conflicting passions pressed, niy heart
Responded; "Honour to the patriot's zeal I
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,
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
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
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




The Prelude
Upon the word of heaven-imparted truth,
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,
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
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
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
Entering, 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,
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.
X march it was of military speed,
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
Mounted —from province on to province swept,
Keen hunters in a chase of fourteen weeks,
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,
Enticing valleys, greeted them and left
Too soon, while yet the very flash and gleam
Of salutation were not passed away.


309




3m10


The Prelude


i Oh-! sorrow for the youth who could have seen,. Unchastenedi unsubdued, unawed, unraised
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),
i 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:himn forth
To industry, by glistenings flung on rocks,
Whose evening shadows lead him to repose.
Well might a stranger look with bounding heart
Down on a green recess, the first I saw
Of those deep haunts, an aboriginal vale,
Quiet and lorded over and possessed
By naked huts, wood-built. and sown like tentsOr Indian cabins over the fresh lawns
And by the river side.
That very day,?-"From a bare ridge we also first beheld
3 Unveiled the summit of Mont- Blanc, and grieved
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,
A motionless array of mighty waves,
Five rivers broad and vast, made rich amends,
And reconciled us to-:realities;
There small birds warble from the leafy trees,
The eagle soars high in the element,
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.
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




The Prelude                 3I:
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:
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,
Did sweeten many a meditative hour.
Yet still in me with those soft luxuries
Mixed something of stern mood, an underthirst
Of vigour seldom utterly allayed:
And from that source how different a sadness
Would issue, let one incident make known.
When from the Vallais we had turned, and clomb
Along the Simplon's steep and rugged road,
Following a band of muleteers, we reached
A halting-place, where all together took
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
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
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
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.
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




312


The Prelude


Came in reply, translated by our feelings,
Ended in this, —hat we had crossed the AMps.
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,
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
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;
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
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
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,
Entered a narrow chasm. The brook and road
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow pace. The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
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,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight




The Prelude


3I3


And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and-the lightWere 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.
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,
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
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,
Fit resting-place for such a visitant.
Locarno 1 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
Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth
Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake
Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots
Of Indian corn tended by dark-eyed maids;
Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines,
Winding from house to house, from town to town,
Sole link that binds them to each other; walks,
League after league, and cloistral avenues,
Where silence dwells if music be not there:
While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,
Through fond ambition of that hour I strove
To chant your praise; 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




314               The Prelude
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 sweetAnd 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
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
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,
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 with this hope; but soon
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;
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,
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;
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,




The Prelude


3I5


That did not leave us free from personal fear;
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
Followed that pair of golden days that shed
On Como's Lake, and all that round it lay,
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
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;
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
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,
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;
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
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 blackbird's whistle in a budding grove.
We left the Swiss exulting in the fate
Of their near neighbours; and, when shortening fast




316              The Prelude
Our pilgrimage, nor distant far from home,
We crossed the Brabant armies on the fret
For battle in the cause of Liberty.
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
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,
And the independent spirit of pure youth
Called forth, at every season, new delights,
Spread round my steps like sunshine o'er green fields.
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- 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. Beloved Friend!
The assurance which then cheered some heavy thoughts
On thy departure to a foreign land
Has failed; too slowly moves the promised work.
Through the whole summer have I been at rest,
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,
A choir of redbreasts gathered somewhere near
My threshold,-minstrels from the distant woods
Sent in on Winter's service, to announce,
1 The City of Goslar, in Lower Saxony.




Th6 Prelude                  317
With preparation artful and benign,
That the rough lord had left the surly North
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,
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
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
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,
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
That lies before us, needful to be told.
Returned from that excursion, soon I bade
Farewell for ever to the sheltered seats
Of gowned students, quitted hall and bower,
And every comfort of that privileged ground,
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
At full command, to London first I turned,
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
Since I had felt in heart and soul the shock




-3I8              The Prelude
Of the huge town's first presence, and had paced
Her endless streets,.a-transient visitant:.
Now, fixed amid that. concourse of mankind
Where Pleasure whirls about incessantly,.
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,
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,
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
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 -
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,
From disappointment, not to.. find some change
In look and air, from that new region brought,
As if from Fairy-land. Much.I questi6oed. him;
And every word he uttered, on my ears
Fell flatter than a caged parrot's note,.
'That answers unexpectedly awry,
And mocks the- prompters 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
For my enjoyment. Would that I could- now.
Recall 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.




The   Prelude                319
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. Above all, one thought
Baffled my understanding: how men lived
Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still
Strangers, not knowing'each the other's name.
Oh, wondrous power of words, by simple faith
Licensed to take the meaning that we love!
Vauxhall and Ranelagh!' I then had heardOf your green groves, and wilderness of lamps
Dimming the stars, and fireworks magical,
And gorgeous ladies, under splendid domes,
Floating in dance, or warbling high in air
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
Of Westminster; the Giants of Guildhall;
Bedlam, and those carved maniacs at the gates,
Perpetually recumbent;- Statues-man,
And the horse under him-in gilded pomp
Adorning flowery gardens, 'mid vast squares;
The Monument, and that Chamber of the Tower
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,
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,.
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,      L
Thou endless stream of men and moving things! i
Thy everyday appearance, as it strikesWith wonder heightened, or sublimed by awe-,:




320


The -Prelude


On strangers, of all ages; the quick dance
Of colours, lights, and forms; the deafening din;
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,
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,
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,
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
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,
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,
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,
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;
These, bold in conscious-merit, lower down;




The Prelude


32I


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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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 show.
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.
M




322               The Prelude
Whether the Painter, whose ambitious skill
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
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,
Some miniature of famous spots or things,St. Peter's Church; or, mtore aspiring aim,
In microscopic vision, Rome herself;.i
Or, haply, some choice rural haunt,-the Falls
Of Tivoli; and, -high upon that steep,
The Sibyl's mouldering Temple! every tree,; '
Villa, or cottage, lurking among rocks..
Throughout the laindscape; tuft, stone scratch minute-.
All that the traveller sees when he is there..
Add to these exhibitions, mute and still,
Others of wider scope, where living mren,
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,
Yet richly graced with honours of her own, "
Half-rural Sadler's Wells?  Though at.that-time -,..
Intolerant, as is,t be way of youth;;:
Unless itself be pleased, here;more than -once;-:
Taking my seat, I saw (nor blush to add,,:
With ample recompense) giants -arnddwarfs, -:;
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; -
To note the laws and progress of belief;
Though obstinate on this way, yet on that.:  -
How willingly we t-ravel, and how far!
To have, 'for instance, brought upon the scene  -
The champion, Jack -the Giant-killer: o-  J
He dons his coat of darkness; on -the stage:
Walks, and achieves his wonders" from the eye
Of living Mortal coverti as the moon  "'"




-The Prelude


323


Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."
Delusion bold! and hoW can it be wrought?
The garb he wears is black as death; the word
"Invisible'> flames forth upon his chest..   -.        is..... ---.:...
Here, too, were '"frms and pressures of the time,"
Rough, bold, as Grecian comedy displayed
When Art was young; dramas of living men,
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 placeI mean, O distant Friend! a story drawn  '
From our own ground,-the Maid of Buttermere,And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife
Deserted and deceived, the Spoiler came
And wooed the artless daughter of the hills,:;
And wedded her, in cruel mockery
Of love and marriage-bonds. 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;
Both stricken, as she entered or withdrew, ';:
With admiration of her- modest mien.  ';
And carriage, marked by unexampled grace.  ~:.
We since that time not unfaniliarly.-::.;:.
Have seen her,-her discretion lha-ve observed;-:
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 inwardl y.:  *.'  ' -.
From this memorial tribute to my theme -:: r;':
I was-returning, when, with sundry forms::
Commingled-shapes which met me in the way ' -.i'
That we must tread-thy image rose again, -:
Maiden of Buttermere!.She lives in-peace
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. ^.: -,
That, thither driven from some unsheltered place,.



324               The Prelude
Rests underneath the little rock-like pile
When storms are raging. Happy are they bothMother and child!-These feelings, in themselves
Trite, do yet scarcely seem so when I think
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
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 pattle-Child as beautiful
As ever clung around a mother's neck,
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
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.
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
By Nature's gifts so favoured: Upon a board
Decked with refreshments had this child been placed,
1His little stage in the vast' theatre,  -
And there he sate, surrounded 'with a throng
Of chance spectators, chiefly dissolute men
And shameless women,' treated arid 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
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
Muttered on black and spiteful instigation'.




The Prelude                  325
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,
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,
Beside the mountain chapel, undisturbed.
Four rapid years had scarcely then been told
Since, travelling southward from our pastoral hills,
I heard, and for the first time in my life,
The voice of woman utter blasphemySaw 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
umanity, splitting the race of man
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
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
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
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
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




326              The' Prelude
Openingthe 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
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,
Stumping upon a cane with which he smites,
From time to time,..the solid boards, and makes 'them
Prate somewhat loudly of the whereabout
Of one so overloaded with his years.
But what of this! the laugh, the grin, grimace,
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
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
And rustling leaves. Enchanting age and sweet!
Rotantic 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,
Yet something' of a girlish child-like gloss
Of novelty survived for scenes like these;
Enjoyment haply handed down from tines
When at a country-playhouse, some rude barn
Tricked out for that proud use, if I perchance
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,
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




The Prelude


327


Nor arduous, yet will not be scorned by them,
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,
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
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
Passed not beyond the suburbs of the mind;!'
Save when realitiesodf act and mien,:
The incarnation of the spirits that move
In harmony amid the Poet's world,
Rose to ideal grandeur, or, called-forth
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.
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
-Before the ermined judge, or that great stage
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
Familiarly, a household term, like those,
The Bedfords, Glosters, Salsburys, of old,
Whom the fifth Harry talks of. Silence! hush!
This is no trifler, no short-flighted wit,
No stammerer of a minute, painfully
Delivered. No! the Orator hath yoked
The Hours, like young Aurora, to his car:
Thrice welcome Presence! how can patience e'er




328


The Prelude


Grow weary of attending on a track
That kindles with such glory! All are charmed,
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,
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,
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
Out of its leafy brow, the more to awe
The younger brethren of the grove. But someWhile he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,
Against all systems built on abstract rights,
Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims
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 bornSome-say at once a froward multitudeMurmur (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
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
In ancient story versed, whose breast had heaved
Under the weight of classic eloquence,
Sit, see, and hear, unthankful, uninspired?\
tNor did the Pulpit's oratory fail
To achieve its higher triumph. Not unfelt
Were its admonishments, nor lightly heard
The awful truths delivered thence by tongues




The Prelude


329


Endowed with various power to search the soul;
Yet ostentation, domineering, oft
Poured forth harangues, how sadly out of place!
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
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
Of rapt irradiation, exquisite.
Meanwhile the Evangelists, Isaiah, Job,
Moses, and he who penned, the other day,
The Death of Abel, Shakespeare, and the Bard
Whose genius spangled o'er a gloomy theme
With fancies thick as his inspiring stars,
And Ossian (doubt not-'tis the naked truth)
Summoned from streamy Morven-each and all
Would, in their turns, lend ornaments and flowers
To entwine the crook of eloquence that helped
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,
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,
Lies to the ear, and lies to every senseOf 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,
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
That asks not speed, a traveller might bestow
M 2




330


The Prelude


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,
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,
Or tenderness, which there, set off by foil,
Appeared more touching. One will I selectA Father-for he bore that sacred name;Him saw I, sitting in an open square,
Upon a corner-stone of that low wall,
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.
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,
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
That huge fermenting mass of human-kind
Serves as a solemn background, or relief,
To single forms and objects, whence they draw,
For feeling and contemplative regard,
More than inherent liveliness and power.
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
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




The Prelude


33I


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
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; and apt type
This label seemed of the utmost we can know,
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,
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
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,
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
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
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
Take one, —that ancient festival, the Fair,
Holden where martyrs suffered in past time,
And named of St. Bartholomew; there, see
A work completed to our hands, that lays,




332              The Prelude
If any spectacle on earth can do,
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
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
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;
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,
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.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,
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
Of man, his dulness, 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,
Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms.
Oh, blank confusion! true epitome
Of what the mighty City is herself,




The Prelude                  333
To thousands upon thousands of her sons,
Living amid the same perpetual whirl
Of trivial objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences
That have no law, no meaning, and no endOppression, under which even highest minds
Must labour, whence the strongest are not free.
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
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,
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,
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,
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
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
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.
The Spirit of Nature was upon me there;
The soul of Beauty and enduring Life
Vouchsafed her inspiration, and diffused.




334               The Prelude
Through meagre lines and colours, and the press
Of self-destroying, transitory things,
Composure, and ennobling Harmony.
BOOK EIGHTH
RETROSPECT-LOVE OF NATURE LEADING TO LOVE
OF MAN
WHAT sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heard
Up to thy summit, throagh 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?
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.
They hold a rustic fair-a festival,
Such as, on this side now, and now on that,
Repeated through his tributary vales,
Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,
Sees annually, if clouds towards either ocean
Blown from their favourite resting-place, or mists
Dissolved, have left him an unshrouded head.
Delightful day it is for all who dwell
In this secluded glen, and eagerly
They give it welcome. Long ere heat of noon,
From byre or field the kine were brought; the sheep
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;
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 pinsSome aged woman finds her way again,
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
Prouder itinerant, mountebank, or he
Whose wonders in a covered wain lie hid.
But one there is, the loveliest of them all,




The Prelude
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,
And with the ruddy produce she walks round
Among the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamed
Of, her new office, blushing restlessly.
The children now are rich, for the old to-day
Are generous as the young; and, if content
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,
Faint, but more tranquil, like the changing sun
To him who slept at noon and wakes at eve."
Thus gaiety and cheerfulness prevail,
Spreading from young to old, from old to young,
And no one seems to want his share.-Immense
Is the recess, the circumambient world
Magnificent, by which they are embraced:
They move about upon the soft green turf:
How little they, they and their doings, seem,
And all that they can further or obstruct!
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
Look down upon them; the reposing clouds;
The wild brooks prattling from invisible haunts;
And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stir
Which animates this day their calm abode.
With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel,
In that enormous City's turbulent world
Of men and things, what benefit I owed
To thee, and those domains of rural peace,
Wheie to the sense of beauty first my heart
Was opened; tract more exquisitely fair
Than that famed paradise of ten thousand trees,
Or Gehol's matchless gardens, for delight
Of the Tartarian dynasty composed
(Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulous,


335


1 These lines are from a descriptive Poem-'-" Malvern Hills "-.by
Joseph Cottle.




336


The Prelude


China's stupendous mound) by patient toil
Of myriads and boon nature's lavish help;
There, in a clime from widest empire chosen,
Fulfilling (could enchantment have done more?)
A sumptuous dream of flowery lawns, with domes
Of pleasure sprinkled over, shady dells
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,
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;
And all the landscape, endlessly enriched
With waters running, falling, or asleep.
But lovelier far than this, the paradise
Where I was reared; in Nature's primitive gifts
Favoured no less, and more to every sense
Delicious, seeing that the sun and sky,
The elements, and seasons as they change,
Do find a worthy fellow-labourer thereMan free, man working for himself, with choice
Of time, and place, and object; by his wants,
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.
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;
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.
For me, when my affections first were led
From kindred, friends, and playmates, to partake
Love for the human creature's absolute self,




The Prelude                  337
That noticeable kindliness of heart
Sprang out of fountains, there abounding most,
Where sovereign Nature dictated the tasksAnd occupations which her beauty adorned,
And Shepherds were the men that pleased me first,  -
Not such as Saturn ruled 'mid Latian wilds,
With arts and laws so tempered, that their lives
Left, even to us toiling in this late day,
A bright tradition of the golden age;
Not such as, 'mid Arcadian fastnesses
Sequestered, handed down among themselves
Felicity, in Grecian song renowned;
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,
Ere Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede;
Or there where Perdita and Florizel
Together danced, Queen of the feast, and King;
Nor such as Spenser fabled. True it is,
That I had heard (what he perhaps had seen)
Of maids at sunrise bringing in from far
Their May-bush, 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,
Tales of the May-pole dance, and wreaths that decked
Porch, door-way, or kirk-pillar; 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,
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 '
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;
Of this I heard, and saw enough to make
Imagination restless; nor was free
Myself from frequent perils; nor were tales




338               The-, Prelude
Wanting,-the tragedies of former times,
Hazards and strange escapes, of which the rocks
Immutable, and everflowing streams,
Where'er I roamed, were speaking monuments.
Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,
Long spriigs and tepid winters, on the banks
Of delicate Galesus; and no less
Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores:
Smooth life had herdsman, and his snow-white herd
To triumphs and to sacrificial rites
Devoted, on the inviolable stream
Of rich Clitumnus; and the goat-herd lived
As calmly, underneath the pleasant brows
Of cool Lucretilis, where the pipe was heard
Of Pan, Invisible God, thrilling the rocks
With tutelary music, from all harm
The fold protecting. I myself, mature
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
Of level pasture, islanded with groves
And banked with woody risings; but the Plain
Endless, here opening widely out, and there
Shut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawn
And intricate recesses, creek or bay
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
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
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
Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed
My daily walk along that wide champaign,




The Prelude                  339
That, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west,
And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge
Of the Hercynian forest. Yet, hail to you
Moors, mountains, headlands, and ye hollow vales,
Ye long deep channels for the Atlantic's voice,
Powers of my native region! Ye that seize
The heart with firmer grasp! Your snows and streams
Ungovernable, and your terrifying winds,
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
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,
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
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,
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,
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
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
To native man. A rambling schoolboy, thus,
I felt his presence in his own domain,




340               The Prelude
As of a lord and master, or a power,
Or genius, under Nature, under God,
Presiding; and severest solitude.
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, suddenly mine eyes
Have glanced upon him distant a few steps,
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:
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. Thus was man
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,
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, who lives
For his own fancies, or to dance by the hour,
In coronal, with Phyllis in the midstWas, for the purposes of kind, a man
With the most common; husband, father; learned,
Could teach, admonish; suffered with the rest
From vice and folly, wretchedness and fear;
Of this I little saw, cared less for it,
But something must have felt.
Call ye these appearancesWhich I beheld of shepherds in my youth,
This sanctity of Nature given to manA 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,
And ye adore! But blessed be the God




The Prelude                  341
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:
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,
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
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
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
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, and now most thankful that my walk
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,
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
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; and when these had drooped




342


The Prelude


And gradually expired, and Nature, prized
For her own sake, became my joy, even thenAnd upwards through late youth, until not less
Than two-and-twenty summers had been toldWas Man in my affections and regards
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,
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
Of tenderness, 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
Of plain Imagination and severe,
No longer a mute influence of the soul,
Ventured, at some rash M use's earnest call,
To try her strength among harmonious words;
And to book-notions and the rules of art
Did knowingly conform itself; there came
Among the simple shapes of human life
A wilfulness of fancy and conceit;
And Nature and her objects beautified
These fictions, as in some sort, in their turn,
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:
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
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




The Prelude                  343
She must be visitant the whole year through,
Wetting the turf with never-ending tears.
Through quaint obliquities I might pursue
These cravings; when the foxglove, one by one,
Upwards through every stage of the tall stem,
Had shed beside the public way its bells,
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 Ito.seat,
Beneath the plant despoiled, but crested still
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,
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. Oit beside the hearth
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
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.
>Thus wilful Fancy, in no hurtful mood,
l Engrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings bred
By pure Imagination: busy Power
She was, and with her ready pupil turned
Instinctively to human passions, then
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, I had forms distinct
To steady me: each airy thought revolved
Round a substantial centre, which at once
Incited it to motion, and controlled.




344              The Prelude
I did not pine like one in cities bred,
As was thy melancholy lot, dear Friend!
Great Spirit as thou art, in endless dreams
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,
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,
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.
Nor shall we not be tending towards that point
Of sound humanity to which our Tale
Leads, though by sinuous ways, if here I show
How Fancy, in a season when she wove
Those slender cords, to guide the unconscious Boy
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 Thurstonmere,
With length of shade so thick, that whoso glides
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
Of a high eastern hill-thus flowed my thoughts
In a pure stream of words fresh from the heart:
Dear native Regions, wheresoe'er shall close
My mortal course, there will I think on you;
Dying, will cast on you a backward look;
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.




The Prelude
Enough of humble arguments; recall,
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,
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 midststood Man,
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,
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,
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,
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; yet here the vulgar light,
Of present, actual, superficial life,
Gleaming through colouring of other times,
Old usages and local privilege,
Was welcomed, softened, if not solemnised.
This notwithstanding, being brought more near
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
Analogy to uproar and misrule,
Disquiet, danger, and obscurity.
It might'be told (but wherefore speak of things


345




346              The Prelude'
Common to all?) that, seeing, I was led
Gravely to ponder-judging between good
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,
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 everything we know.
Grave Teacher, stern Preceptress! for at times
Thou canst put on ah 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
Of child-like inquisition now'and then.
Cast upwards on thy countenance, to detectSome inner meanings which might harbour there.
But how could I in mood so light indulge,
Keeping such fresh remembrance of the day,
When, having thridded the long labyrinth
Of the suburban villages, I first
Entered thy vast dominion? On the roof
Of an itinerant vehicle I sate,
With vulgar men about me, trivial forms
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.
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
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,
Hath passed with torches into some huge cave,
The Grotto of Antiparos, or the Den     '....,........




The Prelude                  347
In old time haunted by that Danish witch,
Yordas; he looks around and sees the vault
Widening on all sides; sees, or thinks he sees,
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
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
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,
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,
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,
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
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,
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
A correspondent amplitude of mind;




348              The Prelude
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
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
From books and what they picture and record.
'Tis true, the history of our native landWith those of Greece compared and popular Rome,
And in our high-wrought modern narratives
Stript of their harmonising soul, the life
Of manners and familiar incidentsHad 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
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,
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 nursedBare hills and valleys, full of caverns, rocks,
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
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,
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




The Prelude                 349
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! everything that was indeed divine
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
1 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
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;
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.
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
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
With that in which her mighty objects lay.
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,
1 From Milton, Par. Lost, xi. 204.




'5o


The Preldfde


That would engulph him soon in the ravenous seaTurns, and will measure back his course, far back,
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
For breathing-time, is tempted to review
The regions 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
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 I needful in work so long,
Thrice needful to the argument which now
Awaits us! Oh, how much unlike the past 1
Free as a colt at pasture on the hill,
I ranged at large, through London's wide domain,
Month after month. Obscurely did I live,
Not seeking frequent intercourse with men,
By literature, or elegance, or rank,
Distinguished. Scarcely was a year thus spent
Ere I forsook the crowded solitude,
With less regret for its luxurious pomp,
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.
l France lured me forth; the realm that I had crossed
So lately, journeying toward the snow-cdld'Alps.
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,
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 -
Down to the suburbs of St, Antony,




The Prelude


-35'


And from Mont Martre southward to the Dome
Of Genevieve. In both her clamorous Halls,
The National Synod and the.Jacobins,
I saw the Revolutionary Power
Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms,
The Arcades I traversed, in the Palace huge
Of Orleans; coasted round and round the line:
Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Shop,
Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk.
Of all who had a. purpose, or had not;
I stared and listened, with a strangers ears,  -
To Hawkers, and Haranguers, hubbub wild I
And hissing Factionists with ardent eyes,
In knots, or pairs, or single.' Not a look
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,
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, in the guise
Of an enthusiast; yet, in honest truth,I looked for something that I could not find,
Affecting mote emotion than I felt;
For 'tis most certain, that these various sights,
However potent their first shock, with me
Appeared to recompense the traveller's pains
Less than the painted Magdalene of Le Brun,
A beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair
Dishevelled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek
Pale and bedropped with overflowing tears.
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,
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, -




352              The Prelude
While every bush and tree, the country through,
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.
Like others, I had skimmed, and sometimes readWith 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
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 eventsA form and body; all things were to me
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
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
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
Proved tedious, and I gradually withdrew.
Into a noisier world, and thus ere long
Became a'patriot; and my; heart was all
l Given to the people, and my love was theirs.
A band of military Officers,
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
One spirit ruling in each heart; alike
(Save only one, hereafter to be named)
Were bent upon unidoing what was done:




The Prelude                 353
This was their rest and only hope; therewith
No fear had they of bad becoming worse,
For worst to them was come; nor would have stirred,
Or deemed it worth a moment's thought to stir,
In anything, save only as the act
Looked thitherward. One, reckoning by years,
Was in the prime of manhood, and erewhile
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
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,
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,
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
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.
The soil of common life was, at that time,
Too hot to tread upon. Oft said I then,
And not then only, " VWhat a mockery this
Of history, the past and that to come!
Now do I feel how all men are deceived,
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
Devoured by locusts,-Carra, Gorsas,-add
A hundred other names, forgotten now,
Nor to be heard of more; yet, they were powers,
-  -      N




354              The Prelude
Like earthquakes,. shocks repeated day by day,
And felt through every nook of town and field.
Such was the state of things. Meanwhile the chief
Of my associates stood prepared for flight
To augment the band of emigrants in arms
Upon the borders of the Rhine, and leagued
/ With foreign foes mustered for instant war.
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;
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,
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,
Of natural rights and civil; and to acts
Of nations an-dtheir passing interests,;
(If with unworldly ends and: aims compared)
Almost indifferent, even; the historian's tale
Prizing but little otherwise than I prized  'Tales of the poets, as it made the heart -
Beat high, andfilled 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:; t
Then, or had ever, even in crudest youth,
That dazzled me;, but rather what I mournied
And ill could brook, beholding that the best b " e
Ruled not, and fee'ling that they ought to rul'e.For, bornif-i -a poor district,: and-. which yet  -.
Retaineth more -of ancient homl:neline ss,
Than any other ndok of-:E ig-lish ground-'.
It was my fortune scarcely: to have seen, e.:- -
Through the whole tenor:of my^school-daytime::;
The face:oiPf   'Wh,: - etrEb4t-y or man,.i: -




The -Prelude


355


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
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 opeh lay to all that came,
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,
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
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 b'efit my youth, the cause
In part lay here, that -unto tie the events
Seemed nothing ouit of.nat'ure's certaitn course,
A gift that was come raither late than, soon.
No wonder, then, if advocates like' these, ";:
Inflamed by passion, blind with prejudice, i: i;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  j
Had slumbered, now-in opposition burst
Forth like a Polar- summer: every word
They uttered was'a daft, by counter-winds
Blown back upon themselves; their reason seemed
Confusion-stricken by a higher power
Than human understanding, their discourse
Maimed, spiritless; and, in their weakness strong,
Itriumphed.
Meantime, day by day,.the roads.;
Were crowded with the -bravest youth olf France,
And all the promptest of her-spirits. linkes d




356               The Prelude
In gallant soldiership, and posting on
To meet the war upon her frontier bounds.
Yet at this very moment do tears start
Into mine eyes: I do not say I weepI wept not then,-but tears have dimmed my sight,
In memory of the farewells of that time,
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,
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;
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,
Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,
Hater perverse of equity and truth.
Among that band of Officers was one,
Already hinted at, of other mouldA patriot, thence rejected by the rest,
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
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
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
To a religious order. Man he loved
As man; and, to the mean and the obscure,
And all the homely in'their homely works,




The Prelude                  357
Transferred a courtesy which had no air
Of condescension; but did rather seem
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
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
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;
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;
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
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
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
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,
From lowly sympathy and chastening truth;
Where good and evil interchange their names,




358              The Prelude
And thirst for bloody spoils abroad is paired
With vice at home. We added dearest themesMan and his noble nature, as it is
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,
Through knowledge spreading and imperishable,
As just in regulation, and as pure
As individual in the wise and good.
We summoned up the honourable deedsOf ancient Story, thought of each bright spot,
That would be found:in all recorded time,
/ Of truth preserved and error passed away;.
Of single spirits that'catch' the. -ae from Heaven,
And how the miultitudes of,m:en' will feed'  '
And fan each other; thought of sects, how keeh
They are to put the appropriate nature o'i,  '
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  '
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
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
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,
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,
Justice and peace. But far more sweet such toil



The Prelude                 359
Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts abstruseIf nature then be. standing on the brink
Of some great trial, and we hear the voice
Of one devoted, —one whom circumstance
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
Of zeal, by an authority Divine
Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death.
Such conversation, under Attic shades,
Did Dion hold with Plato; ripened thus
For a Deliverer's glorious task,-and such
He, on that ministry already bound,
Held with Eudemus and Timonides,.
Surrounded by adventurers in arms,
When those two vessels with their daring freight,'
For the Sicilian Tyrant's overthrow,        '
Sailed from Zacynthus,-philosophic war,
Led by Philosophers. With harder fate,
Though like ambition, such was he, O0 Friend!
Of whom I speak. So Beaupuis (let the name
Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity)
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,
For liberty, against deluded men,
His fellow-countrymen; 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.
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.
Beneath the trees, clear footing many-a mileA 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,




360              The Prelude
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,
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
It was Angelica thundering through the woods
Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid
Erminia, fugitive as fair as she.
Sometimes methought I saw a pair of knights
Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm
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,
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 —
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 abruptIn spite of those heart-bracing colloquies,
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
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
Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings,
To the imperial edifice of Blois,
Or to that rural castle, name now slipped
From my remembrance, where a lady lodged,
By the first Francis wooed, and bound to him




The Prelude                  36i
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
Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath;
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
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
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,
His helper and not theirs, laid stronger hold
[I 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,
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
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
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
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
N 2




362


The Prelude


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
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
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
Of record or report swept over us;
But I might here, instead, repeat a tale,1
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
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,
Is fairer than the fairest star in Heaven!
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;
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
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,
Nature's rebellion against monstrous law;
How, between heart and heart, oppression thrust
1 See " Vaudracour and Julia."




The Prelude                  363
Her mandates, severing whom true love had joined,
Harassing both; until he sank and pressed
The couch his fate had made for him; supine,
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;
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.
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 re ret though  ening watitsth
We by th3e 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,
Bound to the fierce Metropolis. From his throne
The King had fallen, and that invading hostPresumptuous cloud, on whose black front was written
The tender mercies of the dismal wind
That bore it-on the plains of Liberty
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 in his train, intent
To drive their prey enclosed within a ring
Wide as a province, but, the signal given,
Before the point of the lite-threatening spear
Narrowing itself by moments-they, rash men,
Had seen the anticipated quarry turned
Into avengers, from whose wrath they fled
In terror. Disappointment and dismay
Remained for all whose fancies had run wild




364              The Prelude
With evil expectations; confidence
And perfect triumph for the better cause.
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
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
Of a Republic. Lamentable crimes,
'Tis true, had gone before this hour, dire work
Of massacre, in which the senseless sword
Was prayed to as a judge; but these were past,
Earth free from them for ever, as was thought,Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once!
Things that could only show themselves and die.
Cheered with this hope, to Paris I returned,
And ranged, with ardour heretofore unfelt,
The spacious city, and in progress passed
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! )
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,
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.
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,
Reading at intervals; the fear gone by
Pressed on me almost like a fear to come.




The Prelude


365


I thought of those September massacres,
Divided from me by one little month,
Saw them and touched: the rest was conjured up
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
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,
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.
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
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
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
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
Louvet walked single through the avenue,
And took his station in the Tribune, saying,
"I, Robespierre, accuse thee!" Well is known
The inglorious issue of that charge, and how
He, who had launched the startling thunderbolt,
The one bold man, whose voice the attack had sounded,




366


The. Prelude


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.
But these are things
Of which I speak, only as they were storm:
Or sunshine to my individual mind,
No further. Let me then relate that nowIn some sort seeing with my proper eyes
That Liberty, and Life, and Death, would soon
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
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,
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
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.
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,
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
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




The Prelude                  367
Do come within the reach of humblest eyes;
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
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
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,
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
Him who too boldly trusted them, I feltThat '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
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.
On the other side, I called to mind those truths
That are the commonplaces of the schools(A theme for boys, too hackneyed for their sires,)
Yet, with a revelation's liveliness,
In all their comprehensive bearings known
And visible to philosophers of old,
Men who, to business of the world untrained,.: ived in the shade; and to Harmodius known
iAnd his compeer Aristogiton, known
To Brutus-that tyrannic power is weak,
Hath neither gratitude, nor faith, nor love,
Nor the support of good or evil men
To trust in; that the godhead which is ours




368              The Prelude
Can never utterly be charmed or stilled;
That nothing hath a natural right to last
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
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
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
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, else (though assured
That I both was and must be of small weight,
No better than a landsman on the deck
Of a ship struggling with a hideots storm)
Doubtless, I should have then made common cause
With some who perished; haply perished too,
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
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, since ear of mine
Had caught the accents of my native speech
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, where I found




The Prelude


369


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;
Effort which, though defeated, had recalled
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
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,
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!
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
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
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
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,
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,




370               The Prelude
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;
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,
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
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;
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
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
In that delightful island which protects
Their place of convocation-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
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.
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




The Prelude                  371
In wicked pleas, were strong as demons now;
And thus, on every side beset with foes,
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
Of vengeful retribution, theirs who throned
The human Understanding paramount
And made of that their God, the hopes of men
Who were content to barter short-lived pangs
For a paradise of ages, the blind rage
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.
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.
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, allFriends, 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
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
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
Forgot, at seasons, whence they had their being



372


The Prelude


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.
The illustrious wife of Roland, in the hour
Of her composure, felt that agony,
And gave it vent in her last words. 0 Friend!
> It was a lamentable time for man,
Whether a hope had e'er been his or not:
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:
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
Hereafter brought in charge against mankind.
Most melancholy at that time, 0 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
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,
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
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.
9    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, 0 Power Supreme I




The Prelude                  373
/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,
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!
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,
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
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,
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
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,
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.?
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,




374              The Prelude
That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,
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
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
By false philosophy had caused the woe,
But a terrific reservoir of guilt
And ignorance filled up from age to age,
That could no longer hold its loathsome charge,
But burst and spread in deluge through the land.
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
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
Of the glad times when first I traversed France
A youthful pilgrim; 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,
Triumphal pomp for liberty confirmed,
I paced, a dear companion at my side,
The town of Arras, whence with promise high
Issued, on delegation to sustain
Humanity and right, that Robespierre,
He who thereafter, and in how short time!
Wielded the sceptre of the Atheist crew.
When the calamity spread far and wideAnd this same city, that did then appear
To outrun the rest in exultation, groaned
Under the vengeance of her cruel son,
As Lear reproached the winds-I could almost
Have quarrelled with that blameless spectacle




The Prelude                 375
For lingering yet an image in my mind
To mock me under such a strange reverse.
0 Friend! few happier moments have been mine
Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe
So dreaded, so abhorred. The day deserves
A separate record. Over the smooth sands
Of Leven's ample estuary lay
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
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
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.
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,
And on the stone were graven by his desire
Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray.
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,
After the lapse of full eight years, 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,
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
That he had formed, when I, at his command,
Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs.




376              The Prelude
As I advanced, all that I saw or felt
Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small
And rocky island near, a fragment stood,
(Itself like a sea rock) the low remains
(With shells encrusted, dark with briny weeds)
Of a dilapidated structure, once
A Romish chapel, where the vested priest
Said matins at the hour that suited those
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
Along that very shore which I had skimmed




The Prelude


377


In former days, when-spurring from the Vale
Of Nightshade, and St. Mary's mouldering fane,
And the stone abbot, after circuit made
In wantonness of heart, a joyous band
Of schoolboys hastening to their distant home
Along the margin of the moonlight seaWe beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.
BOOK ELEVENTH
FRANCE (concluded)
FROM that time forth, Authority in France
Put on a milder face; Terror had ceased,
Yet everything was wanting that might give
Courage to them who looked for good by light
Of rational Experience, for the shoots
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
To daunt me; in the People was my trust:
And, in the virtues which mine eyes had seen,
I knew that wound external could not take
Life from the young Republic; that new foes
Would only follow, in the path of shame,
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,
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
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 tooThan 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.




378              The Prelude
Hence could I see how Babel-like their task,
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
Distempered, till they found, in every blast.
Forced from the street-disturbing news-man's horn,
For her great cause record or prophecy
Of utter ruin. How might we believe
That wisdom could, in any shape, come near
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,..
Yea, could not but be right, because we saw -:
That foolish men opposed thenm.   ' *:,.  -:
'.:....,  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.
To turn al 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,
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; they who ruled the StateThough 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)
The plain,straight road, for one no better chosen
Than if their wish had been to undermine
Justice, and make an end of Liberty.
But, from these bitter truths I must return
To my own history. It hath been told
That I was led to take an eager part
In arguments of civil polity,




The Prelude                  379
Abruptly, and indeed before my time:      a
I had approached, like other youths, the shield
Of human nature from the golden side,
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,
And great in large ones, I had oft revolved,
Felt deeply, but not thoroughly understood
By reason: nay, far from it; they-were yet; I
As cause was-given me afterwards to learn,
Not proof against the injuries of the day;
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.
Must needs have given-to the inexperienced mind,
When the world travels in a beaten road,
Guide faithful as is needed-I began -;; i;
To meditate with ardour on the rule  -,;
And management of nations; what it is.  '
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!
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! 0 times,
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
A prime enchantress-to assist the work,
Which then was going forward in her name l
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):
The budding rose above the rose full blown.




380               The Prelude
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,
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
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;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 qould wish,Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia,-subterranean fields,-.
/Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
/ But in the very world, which is the world
I Of all of us,-the place where, in the end,
i We find our happiness, or not at all!
Why should I not confess that Earth was then
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,
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
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
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 allNot caring if the wind did now and then




The Prelude,38I


Blow keen upon an eminence that gaveProspect 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,
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.
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;
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;
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,
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
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
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, suchAs could not be impeached, was sought elsewhere.
But now, become oppressors in their turn,
Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence -
For one of:conquest, losing sight of all   /




382              The Prelude
i Which they had struggled for: up mounted now,'- "
Openly in the eye of earth and heaven,
/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:.
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
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 '
Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth  '
For ever in a purer elementFound ready welcome. Tempting region that
For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,.
Where passions had the privilege to work,  -
And never hear the sound of their:own namtes..' ^
But, speaking more in charity, the drearm;
Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least/With that which makes our Reason's naked sef,:;':
\The object of its fervour. What delight I  " 'tHow glorious I in self-knowledge and self-rulei. '
/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, -
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,:  i
From her first ground expelIed, grew proud once m6re,
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, Ii pursued what seemed,. —:-;i i:
A more exalted nature; wished that::Man i...: -,-:
Should start out of his earthly,: wQ —qrn-lk stae. I: ';,




The Prelude                  383
And spread abroad the wings of Liberty,
Lord of himself, in undisturbed delightA noble aspiration! yet I feel
(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
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,
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  -
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 -
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;
Yea, the whole body of society..;.
Searched to its heart. Share with me, Friend!f -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
What then I l-earned, or think I learned, of truth,
And the errors into which I fell, betrayed -
By present objects, and by reasonings false  I
From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn
Out of a-heart that had been turned aside
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,Suspiciously. to:establish in;plain day. ';...:



384              The Prelude
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
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.
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,
" 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
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."
Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk
f 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,
(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 timeWhether in matters various, properties
Inherent, or from human will and power
Derived-find no admission. Then it wasThanks to the bounteous Giver of all good!That the beloved Sister in whosesight
Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice
Of sudden admonition-like a brook
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 —




The Prelude


385


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;
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,  V
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,
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 EmperorThis 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
In exultation with a living pomp
Of clouds-his glory's natural retinueHath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed,
And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine,
Sets like an Opera phantom.
Thus, 0 Friend!
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-    v
A story destined for thy ear, who now,
Among the fallen of nations, dost abide
Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts
His shadow stretching towards Syracuse,
The city of Timoleon! Righteous Heaven!
How are the mighty prostrated! They first,
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
o




386


The Prelude


A trifler only in her proudest day;
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,
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.
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
Stands single in her only sanctuary;
A lonely wanderer, art gone, by pain
Compelled and sickness, at this latter day,
This sorrowful reverse for all mankind.
I feel for-thee, must utter what I feel;
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
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
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! is there not some nook of thine,.
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,
I learnt to dream of Sicily; and lo,
The gloom, that, but a moment past, was deepened




The' Prelude                 387
At thy command, at her command gives way;
A pleasant promise, wafted from her shores,
Comes o'er my heart: in fancy I behold
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,
Or Archimedes, pure abstracted soul!
That doth not yield a solace to my grief:
And, O Theocritus,1 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
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, by his impious lord
Within a chest imprisoned; how they came
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,
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
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
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;
Or, if that fountain be in truth no more,
Then, near some other spring-which, by the name
Thou gratulatest, willingly deceivedI see thee linger a glad votary,
And not a captive pining for his home.
1 Theocrit. Idyll, vii. 78.




388               The Prelude
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,
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,
Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,
Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race
How without injury to take, to give.
Without offence; ye who, as if to show
The wondrous influence of power gently used,
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;
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,
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
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,
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
Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,




The Prelude
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,
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 lotUntil that natural graciousness of mind
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
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
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 taintOf 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,
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
Review the past, I warred against myselfA bigot to a new idolatryLike a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world,
Zealously laboured to cut off my heart
From all the sources of her former strength;
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,


389:




390


The Prelude


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
Less spiritual, with microscopic view
Was scanned, as I had scanned. the moral world?
0 Soul of Nature! excellent and fair!
That didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too,
Rejoiced through early youth, before the winds
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
Employed, and man's unfolding intellect:
OQ 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
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
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,
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,
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,
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 Prelude                  391
- The most despotic of our senses, gained,
Such strength in me as often held my mind
In absolute dominion. Gladly here,
Entering upon abstruser argument,
Could I endeavour to unfold the means
i Which Nature studiously employs to thwart
This tyranny, summons all the senses each
i 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
(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,
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
Seems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid,
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,
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
By her benign simplicity of life,
And through a perfect happiness of soul,
Whose variegated feelings were in this.jsters, that they were each some new delight.
Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,
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 everything she looked on, should have had
An intimation how she bore herself
Towards them and to all creatures. God delights
In such a being; for, her common thoughts
Are piety, her life s gratitude.




392


The Prelude


Even like this maid, before I was called forth
From the retirement of my native hills,
I loved whate'er I saw: nor lightly loved,
I 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
Lived long enough, nor in the least survived
The first diviner influence of this world,
As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.
Worshipping them among the depth of things,
As piety ordained, could I submit
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.
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
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
Inaudible-was transient; I had known
Too forcibly, too early in my life,
Yisitings of imaginative power
fFor this to last: I shook the habit off
Entirely and for ever, and again
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
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;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount,




The Prelude                 393
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.
This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks
Among those passages of life that give
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. I remember well,
That once, while yet my inexperienced hand
Could scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopes
I mounted, and we journeyed towards the hills:
An ancient servant of my father's house
Was with me, my encourager and guide:
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
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.
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:
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,
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,
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
By the strong wind. When, in the blessed hours
Of early love, the loved one at my side,  -2
-~ 02




394               The Prelude
I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,
Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,
And on the melancholy beacon, fell
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
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,
That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. 1 he 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.
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
/ For future restoration.-Yet another
Of these memorials: —
One Christmas-time,
On the glad eve of its dear holidays,
Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth
Into the fields, impatient for the sight
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
Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched;
Thither, uncertain on which road to fix
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,
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, —
That dreary time,-ere we had been ten days




The Prelude                 395
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
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
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,
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,
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
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.
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
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.




396              The Prelude
'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.
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
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,
No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns
Or 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
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,
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
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
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;
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.




The Prelude


397


Knowledge was given accordingly; my trust
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,
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
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
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;
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
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 inquireNot with less interest than heretofore,
But greater, though in spirit more subduediVhy is this glorious creature to be found
e 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?
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
And genuine virtue they possess who live
By bodily toil, labour exceeding far
Their due proportion, under all the weight




398              The Prelude
Of that injustice which upon ourselves
Ourselves entail." Such estimate to frame
I chiefly looked (what need to look beyond?
Among the natural abodes of men,
Fields with their rural works; recalled to mind
My earliest notices; with these compared
The observations made in later youth,
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
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;
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,
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,
Deep vale, or anywhere, 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
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,
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,.
Or well-spring where the weary traveller rests.
Who doth not love to follow with his eye.




The Prelude                  399
The windings of a public way? the sight,
Familiar object as it is, hath wrought
On my imagination since the morn
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
Boundless, or guide into eternity.
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;
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,
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;
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
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
With toil, be therefore yoked with ignorance;
If virtue be indeed so hard to rear,
And intellectual strength so rare a boonI prized such walks still more, for there I found
Hope to my hope, and to my pleasure peace
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.
K IThere are who think that strong affection, love




400              The Prelude
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
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.
jTIrue is it, where oppression worse than death
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
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,
LAnd the eye feeds it -not, and- cannot feed.
-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
The Many for the pleasure of those Few;
Effeminately level down the truth
To certain general notions, for the sakeOf being understood at once, or else
Through want of better knowledge in the heads
That framed them; flattering 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.
Tilere, 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,
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




The Prelude


40I


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
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
No other than the very heart of man,
As found among the best of those who liveNot unexalted by religious faith,
Nor uninformed by books, good books, though fewIn Nature's presence: thence may I select
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
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
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.
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,
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:
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




402


The Prelude


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,
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
Grandeur upon the very humblest face
Of human life. I felt that the array
Of act and circumstance, and visible form,
C Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind
What passion makes them; that meanwhile the forms
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
May boldly take his way among mankind
Wheirever Nature leads; that he hath stood
By Naturs side among the men of old,
And so shall stand for ever. Dearest Friend!
If thou partake the animating faith
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
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,
Creative and enduring, may become
NA3.Apower like one of Nature's. To a hope
Not less ambitious once among the wilds
Of Sarum's Plain, my youthful spirit was raised;
There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs
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




The Prelude                  403
Our dim ancestral Past in vision clear;
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,
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 I again
The Desert visible by dismal flames;
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.
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,
That yet survive, a work, as some divine,
Shaped by the Druids, so to represent
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
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
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, hast saidThat then and there my mind had exercised
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. Call we this
A partial judgment-and yet why? for then
We were as strangers; and I may not speak
Thus wrongfully of verse,- however rude,




404              The Prelude
Which on thy young imagination, trained
In the great City, broke like light from far.
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
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
Of action from without and from within;
The excellence, pure function, and best power
Both of the objects seen, and eye that sees.
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,
I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time,
And westward took my way, to see the sun
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.
It was a close, -varm, breezeless summer night,
Wan, dull, ahd 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,
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
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




The Prelude                  405
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
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,
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
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,
I In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,
Into the main Atlantic, that appeared
'ATo dwindle, and give up his majesty,
Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.
Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none
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
All meek and silent, save that through a riftNot distant from the shore whereon we stood,
A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-placeMounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams
Innumerable, roaring with one voice!
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
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.




406


The Prelude


There I beheld the emblem of a mind
That feeds upon infinity, that broods
Over the dark abyss, intent to hear
Its voices issuing forth to silent light
In one continuous stream; a mind sustained
By recognitions of transcendent power,
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,
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,
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.
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
Created for them, catch it, or are caught
By its inevitable mastery,
Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound
Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.
Them the enduring and the transient both
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,
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,
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




The Prelude                 407
Of Whom they are, habitually infused
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;
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
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
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?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
My earliest visitations, careless then
Of what was given me; and which now I range,
A meditative, oft a suffering, manDo I declare-in accents which, from truth
Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend
Their modulation with these vocal streamsThat, 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,
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
From every combination which might aid
The tendency, too potent in itself,
Of use and custom to bow down the soul




408               The Prelude
Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,
And substitute a universe of death
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,
With the adverse principles of pain and joyEvil 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
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,
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!
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,
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
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
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
In strength, reflecting from its placid breast
\The works of man and face of human life;




The Prelude                  409
/And lastly, from its progress have we drawn
( Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought
Of human Being, Eternity, and God.
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, 0 Man!
Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;
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
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!
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
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,
Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.
Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!
Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere
Poured out for all the early tenderness.
Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true
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
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,
Hath terror in it.- Thou didst soften down:




4-10


The: Prelude


This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend I
My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood
In her original self too confident,
Retained too long a countenance severe;
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
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,
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
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, but an inmate of the heart,
And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined
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,
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?
Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts
Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed
Her overweening grasp; thus thoughts and things
In the self-haunting spirit learned to take
More rational proportions; mystery,
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




The Prelude                  411
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
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,
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,
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
Of building up a Work that shall endure.
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
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.
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,
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,
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




412


The Prelude


Of various tempers; to endure and note  '
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,-.
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
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,
In London chiefly harboured, whence I roamed,
Tarrying at will in many a pleasant spot
Of rural England's cultivated vales  '
Or Cambrian solitudes.' A youth-(he bore
The name of Calvert-it shall live, if words
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
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
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.
Having now
Told what best merits mention, further pains
Our present purpose seems not to require,
And I have other tasks. Recall to mindThe mood in which this labour was begun,
O Friend I The termination of my course.
Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then,..
In that distraction and intense desire,...
I said unto the life which I had lived,.




The Prelude                  4I3
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
Vast prospect of the world which I had beenAnd 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,
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
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,
Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs,
Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes
Didst utter of the Lady Christabel;
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,
Near the loud waterfall; or her who sate
In misery near the miserable ThornWhen thou dost to that summer turn thy thoughts,
And hast before thee all which then we were,
To thee, in memory of that happiness,
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
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,
Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart,
That in this meditative history




4I4               The Prelude
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
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,
And all will be complete, thy race be run,
Thy monument of glory will be raised;
Then, though (too weak to treat the ways of truth)
This age fall back to old idolatry,
Though men return to servitude as fast
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
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
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
(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.
(1799-1805)




The Excursion


415


THE EXCURSION
To THE RIGHT HON.
WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G.
ETC. ETC.
OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer I
In youth I roamed, on youthful pleasures bent;
And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent,
Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear.
-Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
Before thee, LONSDALE, and this Work present,
A token (may it prove a monument!)
Of high respect and gratitude sincere.
Gladly would I have waited till my task
Had reached its close; but Life is insecure,
And Hope full oft fallacious as a dream:
Therefore, for what is here produced, I ask
Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem
The offering, though imperfect, premature.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND,
July 29, 1814.
BOOK FIRST
THE WANDERER
ARGUMENT
A summer forenoon-The Author reaches a ruined Cottage upon a
Common, and there meets with a. revered Friend, the Wanderer, of
whose education and course of life he gives an account-The Wanderer,
while resting under the shade of the Trees that surround the Cottage,
relates the History of its last Inhabitant.
'TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high:
Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs,
In clearest air ascending, showed-far off
A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung
From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots
Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;
To him most pleasant who on soft cool moss
Extends his careless limbs along the front
Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts
A twilight of its own, an ample shade,
Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man,
Half conscious of the soothing melody,




416


The Excursion


With side-long eye looks out upon the scene,
By power of that impending covert, thrown
To finer distance. 'Mine was at that hour
Far other lot, yet with good hope that soon
Under a shade as grateful I should find
Rest, and be welcomed there to livelier joy.
Across a bare wide Common I was toiling
With languid steps that by the slippery turf
Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse
The host of insects gathering round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along.
Upon that open moorland stood a grove,
The wished-for port to which my course was bound.
Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom
Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms,
Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls
That stared upon each other!-I looked round,
And to my wish and to my hope espied
The Friend I sought; a Man of reverend age,
But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired.
There was he seen upon the cottage-bench,
Recumbent in the shade, as.if asleep;
An iron-pointed staff lay' at his side.
Him had I marked the day before-alone
And stationed in the public way, with face
Turned toward the sun then setting, while that staff
Afforded, to the figure of the man
Detained for contemplation or repose,
Graceful support; his countenance as he stood
Was hidden from my view, and he remained
Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight,
With slackened footsteps I advanced, and soon
A glad congratulation we exchanged
At such unthought-of meeting.-For the night
We parted, nothing willingly; and now
He by appointment waited for me here,
Under the covert of these clustering elms.
We were tried Friends: amid a pleasant vale,
In the antique market-village where was passed
My school-time, an apartment he had owned,
To which at intervals the Wanderer drew,
And found a kind of home or harbour there.
He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys.




The Excursion                 417
Singled out me, as he in sport would say,
For my grave looks, too thoughtful for my years.
As I grew up, it was my best delight
To be his chosen comrade. Many a time,
On holidays, we rambled through the woods:
We sate-we walked; he pleased me with report
Of things which he had seen; and often touched
Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind
Turned inward; or at my request would sing
Old songs, the product of his native hills;
A skilful distribution of sweet sounds,
Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed
As cool refreshing water, by the care
Of the industrious husbandman, diffused
Through a parched meadow-ground, in time of drought.
Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse;
How precious, when in riper days I learned
To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice
In the plain presence of his dignity!
Oh! many are the Poets that are sown
By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine;
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse,
(Which, in the docile season of their youth,
It was denied them to acquire, through lack
Of culture and the inspiring aid of books,
Or haply by a temper too severe,
Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame)
Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been led
By circumstance to take unto the height
The measure of themselves, these favoured Beings,
All but a scattered few, live out their time,
Husbanding that which they possess within,
And go to the grave, unthought of. Strongest minds
Are often those of whom the noisy world
Hears least; else surely this Man had not left
His graces unrevealed and unproclaimed.
But, as the mind was filled with inward light,
So not without distinction had he lived,
Beloved and honoured-far as he was known.
And some small portion of his eloquent speech,
And something that may serve to set in view
The feeling pleasures of his loneliness,
His observations, and the thoughts his mind




4I8


The Excursion


Had dealt with —I will here record in verse;
Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink
Or rise as venerable Nature leads,
The high and tender Muses shall accept
With gracious smile, deliberately pleased,
And listening Time reward with sacred praise.
Among the, hills of Athol he was born;
Where, on a small hereditary farm,
An unproductive slip of rugged ground,
His Parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt;
A virtuous household, though exceeding poor!
Pure livers were they all, austere and grave,
And fearing God; the very children taught
Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word,
And an habitual piety, maintained
With strictness scarcely known on English ground.
From his sixth year; the Boy of whom I speak,
In summer, tended cattle on the hills;
But, through the inclement and the perilous days
Of long-continuing winter, he repaired,
Equipped with satchel, to a school, that stood
Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge,
Remote from view of city spire, or sound
Of minster clock i From that bleak tenement
He, many an evening, to his distant home
In solitude returning, saw the hills
Grow larger in the darkness; all alone
Beheld the stars come out above his head,
And travelled through the wood, with no one near
To whom he might confess the things he saw.
So the foundations of his mind were laid.
In-such communion, not from terror free,
While yet a child, and long before his time,
Had he perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
So vividly great objects that they lay
Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
Perplexed the bodily sense. He had received
A precious gift; for, as he grew in years,
With these impressions would he still compare
All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms-;
And, being still unsatisfied with aught
Of dimmer character, he thence attained




The Excursion


419


An active power to fasten images
',Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines
|jIntensely brooded, even till they acquired
iThe liveliness of dreams. -Nor did he fail,
While yet a child, with a child's eagerness
Incessantly to turn his ear and eye
On all things which the moving seasons brought
To feed such appetite-nor this alone
Appeased his yearning:-in the after-day
Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags
He sate, and even in their fixed lineaments,
Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
Or by creative feeling overborne,
Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
Even in their fixed and steady lineaments
He-traced an ebbing and a flowing mind,
Expression ever varying!
Thus informed,
He had small need of books; for many a tale
Traditionary, round the mountains hung,
And many a legend, peopling the dark woods,
Nourished Imagination in her growth,
And gave the Mind that apprehensive power
By which she is made quick to recognise
The moral properties and scope of things.
But eagerly he read, and read again,
Whate'er the minister's old shelf supplied;
The life and death of martyrs, who sustained,
With will inflexible, those fearful pangs
Triumphantly displayed in records left
Of persecution, and the Covenant-times
Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour!
And there, by lucky hap, had been preserved
A straggling volume, torn and incomplete,
That left half-told the preternatural tale,
Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends,
Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts
Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire,
Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled too,
With long and ghostly shanks —forms which once seen
Could never be forgotten!
In his heart,
Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant,
Was wanting yet the pure delight of love




420


The Excursion


By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,
Or by the silent looks of happy things,
Or flowing from the universal face
Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power
Of Nature, and already was prepared,
By his intense conceptions, to receive
Deeply the lesson deep of love which he,
Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught
To feel intensely, cannot but receive.
Such was the Boy-but for the growing Youth
What soul was his, when, from the naked top
Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun:Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He lookedOcean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
Beneath him:-Far and wide the clouds were touched,
And in their silent faces could he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form,
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God,
Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired.
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request;
Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him; it was blessedness and love!
A Herdsman on the lonely mountain tops,
Such intercourse was his, and in this sort
Was his existence oftentimes possessed.
o then how beautiful, how bright, appeared
The written promise! Early had he learned
To reverence the volume that displays
The mystery, the life which cannot die;
But in the mountains did hefeelhis faith.
All things, responsive to the writing, there
Breathed immortality, revolving life,
And greatness still revolving; infinite:
There littleness was not; the least of things




The Excursion


421


Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe,-he saw.
What wonder if his being thus became
Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires,
Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart
Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
Oft as he called those ecstasies to mind,
And whence they flowed; and from them he acquired
Wisdom, which works through patience; thence he learned
In oft-recurring hours of sober thought
To look on Nature with a humble heart.
Self-questioned where it did not understand,
And with a superstitious eye of love.
So passed the time; yet to the nearest town
He.duly went with what small overplus
His earnings might supply, and brought away
The book that most had tempted his desires
While at the stall he read. Among the hills
He gazed upon that mighty orb of song,
The divine Milton. Lore of different kind,
The annual savings of a toilsome life,
His Schoolmaster supplied; books that explain
The purer elements of truth involved
In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe,
(Especially perceived where nature droops
And feeling is suppressed) preserve the mind
Busy in solitude and poverty.
These occupations oftentimes deceived
The listless hours, while in the hollow vale,
Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf
In pensive idleness. What could he do,
Thus daily thirsting, in that lonesome life,
With blind endeavours? Yet, still uppermost,
Nature was at his heart as if he felt,
Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power
In all things that from her sweet influence
Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues,
Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms,
He clothed the nakedness of austere truth.
While yet he lingered in the rudiments
Of science, and among her simplest laws,
His triangles-they were the stars of heaven,
The silent stars!_ Oft did he take delight
To measure the altitude of some tall crag




422


The Excursion


That is the eagle's birth-place, or some peak
Familiar with forgotten years, that shows,
Inscribed upon its visionary sides,
The history of many a winter storm,
Or obscure records of the path of fire.
And thus before his eighteenth year was told,
Accumulated feelings pressed his heart
With still increasing weight; he was o'erpowered
By Nature; by the turbulence subdued
Of his own mind; by mystery and hope,
And the first virgin passion of a soul
Communing with the glorious universe.
Full often wished he that the winds might rage
When they were silent: far more fondly now
Than in his earlier season did he love
Tempestuous nights-the conflict and the sounds
That live in darkness. From his intellect
And from the stillness of abstracted thought
He asked repose; and, failing oft to win
The peace required, he scanned the laws of light
Amid the roar of torrents, where they send
From hollow clefts up to the clearer air
A cloud of mist that, smitten by the sun,
Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus,
And vainly by all other means, he strove
To mitigate the fever of his heart.
In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought,
Thus was he reared; much wanting to assist
The growth of intellect, yet gaining more,
And every moral feeling of his soul
Strengthened and braced, by breathing in content
The keen, the wholesome, air of poverty,
And drinking from the well of homely life.
-But, from past liberty, and tried restraints,
He now was summoned to select the course
Of humble industry that promised best
To yield him no unworthy maintenance.
Urged by his Mother, he essayed to teach
A village-school-but wandering thoughts were then
A misery to him; and the Youth resigned
A task he was unable to perform.
That stern yet kindly Spirit, who constrains
The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks,




The Excursion                  423
The free-born Swiss to leave his narrow vales,
(Spirit attached to regions mountainous
Like their own stedfast clouds) did now impel
His restless mind to look abroad with hope.
-An irksome drudgery seems it to plod on,
Through hot and dusty ways, or pelting storm,
A vagrant Merchant under a heavy load,
Bent as he moves, and needing frequent rest;
Yet do such travellers find their own delight;
And their hard service, deemed debasing now
Gained merited respect in simpler times;
When squire, and priest, and they who round them dwelt
In rustic sequestration-all dependent
Upon the PEDLAR'S toil-supplied their wants,
Or pleased their fancies, with the wares he brought.
Not ignorant was the Youth that still no few
Of his adventurous countrymen were led
By perseverance in this track of life
To competence and ease: —to him it offered
Attractions manifold;- and this he chose.
-His Parents on the enterprise bestowed
Their farewell benediction, but with hearts
Foreboding evil. From his native hills
He wandered far; much did he see of men,
Their manners, "their enjoyments, and pursuits,
TTheir passions and their feelings; chiefly those
i Essential and eternal in the heart,! That, 'mid the simpler forms of rural life,
i Exist more simple in their elements,
i And speak a plainer language. In the woods,
A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields,
Itinerant in this labour, he had passed
The better portion of his time; and there
Spontaneously had his affections thriven
Amid the bounties of the year, the peace
And liberty of nature; there he kept
In solitude and solitary thought
His mind in a just equipoise of love.
Serene it was, unclouded by the cares
Of ordinary life; unvexed, unwarped
By partial bondage. In his steady course,
No piteous revolutions had he felt,
No wild varieties of joy and grief.
Unoccupied by sorrow of its own,
His heart lay open; and, by nature tuned




424


The Excursion


And constant disposition of his thoughts
To sympathy with man, he was alive
To all that was enjoyed where'er he went,
And all that was endured; for, in himself
Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness,
He had no painful pressure from without
That made him turn aside from wretchedness
With coward fears. He could afford to suffer
With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came
That in our best experience he was rich,
And in the wisdom of our daily life.
For hence, minutely, in his various rounds,
He had observed the progress and decay
Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;
The history of many families;
How they had prospered; how they were o'erthrown
By passion or mischance, or such misrule
Among the unthinking masters of the earth
As makes the nations groan.
This active course
He followed till provision for his wants
Had been obtained;-the Wanderer then resolved
To pass the remnant of his days, untasked
With needless services, from hardship free.
His calling laid aside, he lived at ease:
But still he loved to pace the public roads
And the wild paths; and, by the summer's warmth
Invited, often would he leave his home
And journey far, revisiting the scenes
That to his memory were most endeared.
-Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, undamped
By worldly-mindedness or anxious care;
Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refreshed
By knowledge gathered up from day to day;
Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.
The Scottish Church, both on himself and those
With whom from childhood he grew up, had held
The strong hand of her purity; and still
Had watched him with an unrelenting eye.
This he remembered in his riper age
With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.
But by the native vigour of his mind,
By his habitual wanderings out of doors,
By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works,




The Excursion
Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth,
He had imbibed of fear or darker thought
Was melted all away; so true was this,
That sometimes his religion seemed to me
Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods;
Who to the model of his own pure heart
Shaped his belief, as grace divine inspired,
And human reason dictated with awe.
-And surely never did there live on earth
A man of kindlier nature. The rough sports
And teasing ways of children vexed not him;
Indulgent listener was he to the tongue
Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale,
To his fraternal sympathy addressed,
Obtain reluctant hearing.
Plain his garb;
Such as might suit.a rustic Sire, prepared
For sabbath duties; yet he was a man
Whom no one could have passed without remark.
Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs
And his whole figure breathed intelligence.
Time had compressed the freshness of his cheek
Into a narrower circle of deep red,
But had not tamed his eye; that, under brows
Shaggy and grey, had meanings which it brought
From years of youth; which, like a Being made
Of many Beings, he had wondrous skill
To blend with knowledge of the years to come,
Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.
So was He framed; and such his course of life
Who now, with no appendage but a staff,
The prized memorial of relinquished toils,
Upon that cottage-bench reposed his limbs,
Screened from the sun. Supine the Wanderer lay,
His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut,
The shadows of the breezy elms above
Dappling his face. He had not heard the sound
Of my approaching steps, and in the shade
Unnoticed did I stand some minutes' space.
At length I hailed him, seeing that his hat
Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim
Had newly scooped a running stream. He rose,
And ere our lively greeting into peace


42$


P 2




426


The Excursion


Had settled, "'Tis," said I, "a burning day:
My lips are parched with thirst, but you, it seems,
Have somewhere found relief."  He, at the word,
Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb
The fence where that aspiring shrub looked out
Upon the public way. It was a plot
Of garden ground run wild, its matted weeds
Marked with the steps of those, whom, as they passed,
The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank slips,
Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems,
In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap
The broken wall. I looked around, and there,
Where two tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs
Joined in a cold damp nook, espied a well
Shrouded with willow-flowers and plumy fern.
My thirst I slaked, and, from the cheerless spot
Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned
Where sate the old Man on the cottage-bench;
And, while, beside him, with uncovered head,
I yet was standing, freely to respire,
And cool my temples in the fanning air,
Thus did he speak. "I see around me here
Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend,
Nor we alone, but that which each man loved
And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon
Even of the good is no memorial left.
-The Poets, in their elegies and songs
Lamenting the departed, call the groves,
They call upon the hills and streams, to mourn,
And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak,
In these their invocations, with a voice
Obedient to the strong creative power
Of human passion. Sympathies there are
More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,
That steal upon the meditative mind,
And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood,
And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel
One sadness, they and I. For them a bond
Of brotherhood is broken: time has been
When, every day, the touch of human hand
Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up
In mortal stillness; and they ministered
To human comfort. Stooping down to drink,
Upon the slimy foot-stone I espied




The   Excursion                427
The useless fragment of a wooden bowl,
Green with the moss of years, and subject only
To the soft handling of the elements:
There let it lie-how foolish are such thoughts!
Forgive them;-never-never did my steps
Approach this door but she who dwelt within
A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her
As my own child. Oh, Sir! the good die first, -
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket. Many a passenger
Hath blessed poor Margaret for her gentle looks,
When she upheld the cool refreshment drawn
From that forsaken spring; and no one came
But he was welcome; no one went away
But that it seemed she loved him. She is dead,
The light extinguished of her lonely hut,
The hut itself abandoned to decay,
And she forgotten in the quiet grave.
I speak," continued he, '" of One whose stock
Of virtues bloomed beneath this lonely roof.
She was a Woman of a steady mind,
Tender and deep in her excess of love;
Not speaking much, pleased rather with the joy
Of her own thoughts: by some especial care
Her temper had been framed, as if to make
A Being, who by adding love to peace
Might live on earth a life of happiness.
Her wedded Partner lacked not on his side
The humble worth that satisfied her heart:
Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal
Keenly industrious. She with pride would tell
That he was often seated at his loom,
In summer, ere the mower was abroad
Among the dewy grass,-in early spring,
Ere the last star had vanished.-They who passed
At evening, from behind the garden fence
Might hear his busy spade, which he would ply,
After his daily work, until the light
Had failed, and every leaf and flower were lost
In the dark hedges. So their days were spent
In peace and comfort; and a pretty boy
Was their best hope, next to the God in heaven.
Not twenty years ago, but you I think
Can scarcely bear it now in mind, there came




428


The Excursion


Two blighting seasons, when the fields were left
With half a harvest. It pleased Heaven to add
A worse affliction in the plague of war:
This happy Land was stricken to the heart!
A Wanderer then among the cottages,
I, with my freight of winter raiment, saw
The hardships of that season: many rich
Sank down, as in a dream, among the poor;
And of the poor did many cease to be,
And their place knew them not. Meanwhile, abridged
Of daily comforts, gladly reconciled
To numerous self-denials, Margaret
Went struggling on through those calamitous years
With cheerful hope, until the second autumn,
When her life's Helpmate on a sick-bed lay,
Smitten with perilous fever. In disease
He lingered long; and, when his strength returned,
He found the little he had stored, to meet
The hour of accident or crippling age,
Was all consumed. A second infant now
Was added to the troubles of a time
Laden, for them and all of their degree,
With care and sorrow; shoals of artisans
From ill-requited labour turned adrift
Sought daily bread from public charity,
They, and their wives and children-happier far
Could they have lived as do the little birds
That peck along the hedge-rows, or the kite
That makes her dwelling on the mountain rocks'!
A sad reverse it was for him who long
Had filled with plenty, and possessed in peace,
This lonely Cottage. At the door he stood,
And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes
That had no mirth in them; or with his knife
Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticksThen, not less idly, sought, through every nook
In house or garden, any casual work
Of use or ornament; and with a strange,
Amusing, yet uneasy, novelty,
He mingled, where he might, the various tasks
Of summer, autumn, winter, and of spring.
But this endured not; his good humour soon
Became a weight in which no pleasure was:
And poverty brought on a petted mood




The Excursion                  429
And a sore temper: day by day he drooped,
And he would leave his work-and to the town
Would turn without an errand his slack steps;
Or wander here and there among the fields.
One while he would speak lightly of his babes,
And with a cruel tongue: at other times
He tossed them with a false unnatural joy:
And 'twas a rueful thing to see the looks
Of the poor innocent children. ' Every smile,'
Said Margaret to me, here beneath these trees,
'Made my heart bleed."'
At this the Wanderer paused;
And, looking up to those enormous elms,
He said, "'Tis now the hour of deepest noon.
At this still season of repose and peace,
This hour when all things which are not at rest
Are cheerful; while this multitude of flies
With tuneful hum is filling all the air;
Why should a tear be on an old Man's cheek?
Why should we thus, with an untoward mind,
And in the weakness of humanity,
From natural wisdom turn our hearts away;
To natural comfort shut our eyes and ears;
And, feeding on disquiet, thus disturb
The calm of nature with our restless thoughts?"
HE spake with somewhat of a solemn tone:
But, when he ended, there was in his face
Such easy cheerfulness, a look so mild,
That for a little time it stole away
All recollection; and that simple tale
Passed from my mind like a forgotten sound.
A while on trivial things we held discourse,
To me soon tasteless. In my own despite,
I thought of that poor Woman as of one
Whom I had known and loved. 'He had rehearsed
Her homely tale with such familiar power,
With such an active countenance, an eye
So busy, that the things of which he spake
Seemed present; and, attention now relaxed,
A heart-felt chillness crept along my veins.
I rose; and, having left the breezy shade,
Stood drinking comfort from the warmer sun,
That had not cheered me long-ere, looking round




430


The Excursion


Upon that tranquil Ruin, I returned,
And begged of the old Man that, for my sake,
He would resume his story,
He replied,
"It were a wantonness, and would demand
Severe reproof, if we were men whose hearts
Could hold vain dalliance with the misery
Even of the dead; contented thence to draw
A momentary pleasure, never marked
By reason, barren of all future good.
But we have known that-there is often found
In mournful thoughts, and always might be found,
A power to virtue friendly; were't not so,
I am a dreamer among men, indeed
An idle dreamer! 'Tis a common tale,
An ordinary sorrow of man's life,
A tale of silent suffering, hardly clothed
In bodily form.-But without further bidding
I will proceed.
While thus it fared with them,
To whom this cottage, till those hapless years,
Had been a blessed home, it was my chance
To travel in a country far remote;
And when these lofty elms once more appeared
What pleasant expectations lured me on
O'er the flat Common!-With quick step I reached
The threshold, lifted with light hand the latch;
But, when I entered, Margaret looked at me
A little while; then turned her head away
Speechless,-and, sitting down upon a chair,
Wept bitterly. I-wist not what to do,
Nor how to speak to her. Poor Wretch! at last
She rose from off her seat, and then,-O Sir 1
I cannot tell how she pronounced my name:With fervent love, and with a face of grief
Unutterably helpless, and a look
That seemed to cling upon me, she enquired
If I had seen her husband. As she spake
A strange surprise and fear came to my heart,
Nor had I power to answer ere she told
That he had disappeared-not two months gone.
He left his house: two wretched days had past,:
And on the third, as wistfully she raised
Her head from off her pillow, to look forth,




The Excursion


43I


Like one in trouble, for returning light,
Within her chamber-casement she espied
A folded paper, lying as if placed
To meet her waking eyes. This tremblingly
She opened-found no writing, but beheld
Pieces of money carefully enclosed,
Silver and gold. 'I shuddered at the sight,'
Said Margaret, 'for I knew it was his hand
That must have placed it there; and ere that day
Was ended, that long anxious day, I learned,
From one who by my husband had been sent
With the sad news, that he had joined a troop
Of soldiers, going to a distant land.
-He left me thus-he could not gather heart
To take a farewell of me; for he feared
That I should follow with my babes, and sink
Beneath the misery of that wandering life.'
This tale did Margaret tell with many tears:
And, when she ended, I had little power
To give her comfort, and was glad to take
Such words of hope from her own mouth as served
To cheer us both. But long we had not talked
Ere we built up a pile of better thoughts,
And with a brighter eye she looked around
As if she had been shedding tears of joy.
We parted.-'Twas the time of early spring;
I left her busy with her garden tools;
And well remember, o'er that fence she looked,
And, while I paced along the foot-way path,
Called out, and sent a blessing after me,
With tender cheerfulness, and with a voice
That seemed the very sound of happy thoughts.
I roved o'er many a hill and many a dale,
With my accustomed load; in heat and cold,
Through many a wood and many an open ground,
In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair,
Drooping or blithe of heart, as might befall;
My best companions now the driving winds,
And now the 'trotting brooks 'and whispering trees,
And now the music of my own sad steps,
With many a short-lived thought that passed between,
And disappeared.
I journeyed back this way,
When, in the warmth of midsummer, the wheat




432


The Excursion


Was yellow; and the soft and bladed grass,
Springing afresh, had o'er the: hay-field spread
Its tender verdure. At the door arrived,
I found that she was absent. In the shade,
Where now we sit, I waited her return.
Her cottage, then a cheerful object, wore
Its customary look,-only, it seemed,
The honeysuckle, crowding round the porch,
Hung down in heavier tufts; and that bright weed,
The yellow stone-crop, suffered to take root
Along the window's edge, profusely grew,
Blinding the lower panes. I turned aside,
And strolled into her garden. It appeared
To lag behind the season, and had lost
Its pride of neatness. Daisy-flowers and thrift
Had broken their trim border-lines, and straggled
O'er paths they used to deck: carnations, once
Prized for surpassing beauty, and no less
For the peculiar pains they had required,
Declined their languid heads, wanting support.
The cumbrous bind-weed, with its wreaths and bells,
Had twined about her two small rows of peas,
And dragged them to the earth.
Ere this an hour
Was wasted.-Back I turned my restless steps;
A stranger passed; and, guessing whom I sought,
He said that she was used to ramble far.The sun was sinking in the west; and now
I sate with sad impatience.' From within
Her solitary infant cried aloud;
Then, like a blast that dies away self-stilled,
The voice was silent. From the bench I rose;
But neither could divert nor soothe my thoughts.
The spot, though fair, was very desolateThe longer I remained, more desolate:
And, looking round me, now I first observed
The corner stones, on either side the porch,
With dull red stains discoloured, and stuck o'er
With tufts and hairs of wool, as if the sheep,
That fed upon the Common, thither came
Familiarly, and found a couching-place
Even at her threshold. Deeper shadows fell
From these tall elms; the cottage-clock struck eight;I turned, and saw her distant a few steps.
Her face was pale and thin-her figure, too,




The Excursion                  433
Was changed. As she unlocked the door, she said,
' It grieves me you have waited here so long,
But, in good truth, I've wandered much of late;
And sometimes-to my shame I speak-have need
Of my best prayers to bring me back again.'
While on the board she spread our evening meal,
She told me-interrupting not the work
Which gave employment to her listless handsThat she had parted with her elder child;
To a kind master on a distant farm
Now happily apprenticed.-' I perceive
You look at me, and you have cause; to-day
I have been travelling far; and many days
About the fields I wander, knowing this
Only, that what I seek I cannot find;
And so I waste my time: for I am changed;
And to myself,' said she, 'have done much wrong
And to this helpless infant. I have slept
Weeping, and weeping have I waked; my tears
Have flowed as if my body were not such
As others are; and I could never die.
But I am now in mind and in my heart
More easy; and I hope,' said she, 'that God
Will give me patience to endure the things
Which I behold at home.'
It would have grieved
Your very soul to see her. Sir, I feel
The story linger in my heart; I fear
'Tis long and tedious; but my spirit clings
To that poor Woman:-so familiarly
Do I perceive her manner, and her look,
And presence; and so deeply do I feel
Her goodness, that, not seldom, in my walks
A momentary trance comes over me;
And to myself I seem to muse on One
By sorrow laid asleep; or borne away,
A human being destined to awake
To human life, or something very near
To human life, when he shall come again
For whom she suffered. Yes, it would have grieved
Your very soul to see her: evermore
Her eyelids drooped, her eyes downward were cast;
And, when she at her table gave me food,
She did not look at me. Her voice was low,
Her body was subdued. In every act




434             The    Excursion
Pertaining to her house-affairs, appeared
The careless stillness of a thinking mind
Self-occupied; to which all outward things
Are like an idle matter. -Still she sighed,
But yet no motion of the breast was seen,
No heaving of the heart. While by the fire
We sate together, sighs came on my ear,
I knew not how, and hardly whence they came.
Ere my departure, to her care I gave,
For her son's use, some tokens of regard,
Which with a look of welcome she received;
And I exhorted her to place her trust
In God's good love, and seek his help by prayer.
I took my staff, and, when I kissed her babe,
The tears stood in her eyes. I left her thenWith the best hope and comfort I could give:
She thanked me for my wish;-but for my hope
It seemed she did not thank me.
I returned,
And took my rounds along this road again
When on its sunny bank the primrose flower
Peeped forth, to give an earnest of the Spring.
I found her sad and drooping: she had learned
No tidings of her husband; if he lived,
She knew not that he lived; if he were dead,
She knew not he was dead. She seemed the same
In person and appearance; but her house
Bespake a sleepy hand of negligence;
The floor was neither dry nor neat, the hearth
Was comfortless, and her small lot of books,
Which, in the cottage-window, heretofore
Had been -piled up against the corner panes
In seemly order, now, with straggling leaves
Lay scattered here and there, open or shut,
As they had chanced to fall. Her infant Babe
Had from his Mother caught the trick of grief,
And sighed among its playthings. I withdrew,
And once again entering the garden saw,
More plainly still, that poverty and grief
Were now come nearer to her: weeds defaced
The hardened soil, and knots of withered grass:
No ridges there appeared of clear black mould,
No winter greenness; of her herbs and flowers,
It seemed the better part was gnawed away




The Excursion


435


Or trampled into earth; a chain of straw,
Which had been twined about the slender stem
Of a young apple-tree, lay at its root;
The bark was nibbled round by truant sheep.
-Margaret stood near, her infant in her arms,
And, noting that my eye was on the tree,
She said, 'I fear it will be dead and gone
Ere Robert come again.' When to the House
We had returned together, she enquired
If I had any hope:-but for her babe
And for her little orphan boy, she said,
She had no wish to live, that she must die
Of sorrow. Yet I saw the idle loom
Still in its place; his Sunday garments hung
Upon the self-same nail; his very staff
Stood undisturbed behind the door.
And when,
In bleak December, I retraced this way,
She told me that her little babe was dead,
And she was left alone. She now, released
From her maternal cares, had taken up
The employment common through these wilds, and gained,
By spinning hemp, a pittance for herself;
And for this end had hired a neighbour's boy
To give her needful help. That very time
Most willingly she put her work aside,
And walked with me along the miry road,
Heedless how far; and, in such piteous sort
That any heart had ached to hear her, begged
That, wheresoe'er I went, I still would ask
For him whom she had lost. We parted thenOur final parting; for from that time forth
Did many seasons pass ere I returned
Into this tract again.
Nine tedious years;
From their first separation, nine long years,
She lingered in unquiet widowhood;
A Wife and Widow. Needs must it have been
A sore heart-wasting! I have heard, my Friend,
That in yon arbour oftentimes she sate
Alone, through half the vacant sabbath day;
And, if a dog passed by, she still would quit
The shade, and look abroad. On this old bench
For hours she sate; and evermore her eye
Was busy in the distance, shaping things




436


The Excursion


That made her heart beat quick. You see that path,
Now faint,-the grass has crept o'er its grey line;
There, to and fro, she paced through many a day
Of the warm summer, from a belt of hemp
That girt her waist, spinning the long-drawn thread
With backward steps. Yet ever as there passed
A man whose garments showed the soldier's red,
Or crippled mendicant in sailor's garb,
The little child who sate to turn the wheel
Ceased from his task; and she with faltering voice
Made many a fond enquiry; and when they,
Whose presence gave no comfort, were gone by,
Her heart was still more sad. And by yon gate,
That bars the traveller's road, she often stood,
And when a stranger horseman came, the latch
Would lift, and in his face look wistfully;
Most happy, if, from aught discovered there
Of tender feeling, she might dare repeat
The same sad question. Meanwhile her poor Hut
Sank to decay; for he was gone, whose hand,
At the first nipping of October frost,
Closed up each chink, and with fresh bands of straw
Chequered the green-grown thatch. And so she lived
Through the long winter, reckless and alone;
Until her house by frost, and thaw, and rain,
Was sapped; and while she slept, the nightly damps
Did chill her breast; and in the stormy day
Her tattered clothes were ruffled by the wind,
Even at the side of her own fire. Yet still
She loved this wretched spot, nor would for worlds
Have parted hence; and still that length of road,
And this rude bench, one torturing hope endeared,
Fast rooted at her heart: and here, my Friend, —
In sickness she remained; and here she died;
Last human tenant of these ruined walls!"
The old Man ceased: he saw that I was moved;
From that low bench, rising instinctively
I turned aside in weakness, nor had power
To thank him for the tale which he had told.
I stood, and leaning o'er the garden wall
Reviewed that Woman's sufferings; and it seemed
To coinfort me while with a brother's love
I blessed her in the impotence of grief.
Then towards the cottage I returned; and traced




The Excursion


437


Fondly, though with an interest more mild,
That secret spirit of humanity
Which, 'mid the calm oblivious tendencies
Of nature, 'mid her plants, and weeds, and flowers,
And silent overgrowings, still survived.
The old Man, noting this, resumed, and said,
"My Friend! enough to sorrow you have given,
The purposes of wisdom ask no more:
Nor more would she have craved as due to One
Who, in her worst distress, had ofttimes felt
The unbounded might of prayer; and learned, with soul
Fixed on the Cross, that consolation springs,
From sources deeper far than deepest pain,
For the meek Sufferer. Why then should we read
The forms of things with an unworthy eye?
She sleeps in the calm earth, and peace is here.
I well remember that those very plumes,
Those weeds, and the high spear-grass on that wall,
By mist and silent rain-drops silvered o'er,
As once I passed, into my heart conveyed
So still an image of tranquillity,
So calm and still, and looked so beautiful
Amid the uneasy thoughts which filled my mind,
That what we feel of sorrow and despair
From ruin and from change, and all the grief
That passing shows of Being leave behind,
Appeared an idle dream, that could maintain,
Nowhere, dominion o'er the enlightened spirit
Whose meditative sympathies repose
Upon the breast of Faith. I turned away,
And walked along my road in happiness."
He ceased. Ere long the sun declining shot
A slant and mellow radiance, which began
To fall upon us, while, beneath the trees,
We sate on that low bench: and now.we felt,
Admonished thus, the sweet hour coming on.
A linnet warbled from those lofty elms,
A thrush sang loud, and other melodies,
At distance heard, peopled the milder air.
The old Man rose, and, with a sprightly mien
Of hopeful preparation, grasped his staff;
Together casting then a farewell look
Upon those silent walls, we left the shade;
And, ere the stars were visible, had reached
A village-inn,-our evening resting-place.




438                The Excursion
BOOK SECOND
THE SOLITARY
ARGUMENT
The Author -describes his travels with the Wanderer, whose character
is further illustrated-Morning scene, and View of a Village WakeWanderer's account of: a Friend whom he purposes to visit-View, froh
an- eminence, of the Valley which his Friend had chosen for his retreat
-Sound of singing from below-A funeral procession-Descent into the
Valley-Observations drawn from the Wanderer at sight of a book.
accidentally discovered in a: recess in the Valley —Meeting with the
Wanderer's friend, the Solitary-Wanderer's description of the mode of
burial in this mountainous district-Solitary contrasts with this, that of
the individual carried a few minutes before from the cottage-The cottage
entered-Description of the Solitary's apartment-Repast there-View,
from the window, of two mountain summits; and the Solitary's description of the companionship they afford him-Account of the departed
inmate of the cottage —Description of a grand spectacle upon the
mountains, with-its effect upon the Solitary's mind-Leave the house.
IN days of yore how fortunately fared
The Minstrel! wandering on from hall to hall,
Baronial court or royal; cheered with gifts
Munificent, and love, and ladies' praise;
Now meeting on his road an armed knight,
Now resting with a pilgrim by the side
Of a clear brook;-beneath an abbey's roof
One evening sumptuously lodged; the next,
Humbly in a religious hospital;
Or with some merry outlaws of the wood;
Or haply shrouded in a hermit's cell.
Him, sleeping or awake,, the robber spared;
He walked-protected from the sword of warBy virtue of that sacred instrument
His harp, -suspended at the traveller's side;
His dear companion wheresoe'er he went
Opening from land to land an easy'way.
By melody, and by the charm of verse.
Yet not the noblest of that honoured Race
Diew happier, loftier, more empassioned, thoughts -
From his long journeyings and eventful life,
Than this obscures Itinerant had skill
To gather, ranging through the tamer ground
Of these our unimaginative days;
Both while he trod the earth in humblest guise
Accoutred with his burthen and his staff;
And now, when free to move with lighter pace..:..




The Excursion                  439
What wonder, then, if I, whose favourite school
Hath been the fields, the roads, and rural lanes,
Looked on this guide with reverential love'?
Each with the other pleased, we now pursued
Our journey, under favourable skies.
Turn wheresoe'er we would, he was a light
Unfailing: not a hamlet could we pass,
Rarely a house, that did not yield to him
Remembrances; or from his tongue call forth
Some way-beguiling tale. Nor less regard
Accompanied those strains of apt discourse,
Which nature's various objects might inspire;
And in the silence of his face I read
His overflowing spirit. Birds and beasts,
And the mute fish that glances in the stream,
And harmless reptile coiling in the sun,
And gorgeous insect hovering in the air,
The fowl domestic, and the household dogIn his capacious mind, he loved them all:
Their rights acknowledging he felt for all.
Oft was occasion given me to perceive
How the calm pleasures of the pasturing herd
To happy contemplation soothed his walk;
How the poor brute's condition, forced to run
Its course of suffering in the public road,
Sad contrast! all too often smote his heart
With unavailing pity. Rich in love
And sweet humanity, he was, himself,
To the degree that he desired, beloved.
Smiles of good-will from faces that he knew
Greeted us all day long; we took our seats
By many a cottage-hearth, where he received
The welcome of an Inmate from afar,
And I at once forgot, I was a Stranger.
-Nor was he loth to enter ragged huts,
Huts where his charity was blest; his voice
Heard as the voice of an experienced friend.
And, sometimes-where the poor man held dispute
With his own mind, unable to subdue
Impatience through inaptness to perceive
General distress in his particular lot;
Or cherishing resentment, or in vain
Struggling against it; with a soul perplexed,
And finding in herself no steady power
To- draw the line of comfort that divides




440


The Excursion


Calamity, the chastisement of Heaven,
From the injustice of our brother menTo him appeal was made as to a judge;
Who, with an understanding heart, allayed
The perturbation; listened to the plea;
Resolved the dubious point; and sentence gave
So grounded, so applied, that it was heard
With softened spirit, even when it condemned.
Such intercourse I witnessed, while we roved,
Now as his choice directed, now as mine;
Or both, with equal readiness of will,
Our course submitting to the changeful breeze
Of accident. But when the rising sun
Had three times called us to renew our walk,
My Fellow-traveller, with earnest voice,
As if the thought were but a moment old,
Claimed absolute dominion for the day.
We started-and he led me toward the hills,
Up through an -ample vale, with higher hills
Before us, mountains stern and desolate;
But, in the majesty of distance, now
Set off, and to our ken appearing fair
Of aspect, with aerial softness clad,
And beautified with morning's purple beams.
The wealthy, the luxurious, by the stress
Of business roused, or pleasure, ere their time,
May roll in chariots, or provoke the hoofs
Of the fleet coursers they bestride, to raise
From earth the dust of morning, slow to rise;
And they, if blest with health and hearts at ease,
Shall lack not their enjoyment:-but how faint
Compared with ours! who, pacing side by side,
Could, with an eye of leisure, look on all
That we beheld; and lend the listening sense
To every grateful sound of earth and air;
Pausing at will-our spirits braced, our thoughts
~Pleasant as roses in the thickets blown,
And pure as dew bathing their crimson leaves.
Mount slowly, sun! that we may journey long,
By this dark hill protected from thy beams!
Such is the summer pilgrim's frequent wish;
But quickly from among our morning thoughts
'Twas chased away: for, toward the western side




The Excursion


44'


Of the broad vale, casting a casual glance,
We saw a throng of people; wherefore met?
Blithe notes of music, suddenly let loose
On the thrilled ear, and flags uprising, yield
Prompt answer; they proclaim the annual Wake,
Which the bright season favours.-Tabor and pipe
In purpose join to hasten or reprove
The laggard Rustic; and repay with boons
Of merriment a party-coloured knot,
Already formed upon the village-green.
-Beyond the limits of the shadow cast
By the broad hill, glistened upon our sight
That gay assemblage. Round them and above,
Glitter, with dark recesses interposed,
Casement, and cottage-roof, and stems of trees
Half-veiled in vapoury cloud, the silver steam
Of dews fast melting on their leafy boughs
By the strong sunbeams smitten. Like a mast
Of gold, the Maypole shines; as if the rays
Of morning, aided by exhaling dew,
With gladsome influence could re-animate
The faded garlands dangling from its sides.
Said I, " The music and the sprightly scene
Invite us; shall we quit our road, and join
These festive matins? "-He replied, " Not loth
To linger I would here with you partake,
Not one hour merely, but till evening's close,
The simple pastimes of the day and place.
By the fleet Racers, ere the sun be set,
The turf of yon large pasture will be skimmed;
There, too, the lusty Wrestlers shall contend:
But know we not that he, who intermits
The appointed task and duties of the day,
Untunes full oft the pleasures of the day;
Checking the finer spirits that refuse
To flow when purposes are lightly changed?
A length of journey yet remains untraced:
Let us proceed." Then, pointing with his staff
Raised towards those craggy summits, his intent
He thus imparted:
"In a spot that lies
Among yon mountain fastnesses concealed,
You will receive, before the hour of noon,
Good recompense, I hope, for -this day's toil,




442


The Excursion


From sight of One who lives secluded there,
Lonesome and lost: of whom, and whose past life,
(Not to forestall such knowledge as may be
More faithfully collected from himself)
This brief communication shall suffice.
Though now sojourning there, he, like myself,
Sprang from a stock of lowly parentage
Among the wilds of Scotland, in a tract
Where many a sheltered and well-tended plant,
Bears, on the humblest ground of social life,
Blossoms of piety and innocence.
Such grateful promises his youth displayed:
And, having shown in study forward zeal,
He to the Ministry was duly called;
And straight, incited by a curious mind
Filled with vague hopes, he undertook the charge
Of Chaplain to a military troop
Cheered by the Highland bagpipe, as they marched
In plaided vest, —his fellow-countrymen.
This office filling, yet by native power
And force of native inclination made
An intellectual ruler in the haunts
Of social vanity, he walked the world,
Gay, and affecting graceful gaiety;
Lax, buoyant —less a pastor with his flock
Than a soldier among soldiers-lived and roamed
Where Fortune led:-and Fortune, who oft proves
The careless wanderer's friend, to him made known
A blooming Lady-a conspicuous flower,
Admired for beauty, for her sweetness praised;
Whom he had sensibility to love,.
Ambition to attempt, and skill to win.
For this fair Bride, most rich in gifts of mind,
Nor sparingly endowed with worldly wealth,
His office he relinquished; and retired
From the world's notice to a rural home.
Youth's season yet with him was scarcely past,
And she was in youth's prime. How free their love,
How full their joy  'Till, pitiable doom 1
In the short course of one undreaded year
Death blasted all. Death suddenly o'erthrew
Two lovely Children-all that they possessed!
The Mother followed:-miserably bare




The Excursion                 443
The one Survivor stood; he Wept, he prayed
For his dismissal, day and night, compelled
To hold communion with the grave, and face
With pain the regions of eternity.
An uncomplaining apathy displaced
This anguish; and, indifferent to delight,
To aim and purpose, he consumed his days,
To private interest dead, and public care.
So lived he; so he might have died.
But now,
To the wide world's astonishment, appeared
A glorious opening, the unlooked-for dawn,
That promised everlasting joy to France!
Her voice of social transport reached even him I
He broke from his contracted bounds, repaired
To the great City, an emporium then
Of golden expectations, and receiving
Freights every day from a new world of hope.
Thither his popular talents he transferred;
And, from the pulpit, zealously maintained
The cause of Christ and civil liberty,
As one, and moving to one glorious end.
Intoxicating service! I might say
A happy service; for he was sincere
As vanity and fondness for applause,
And new and shapeless wishes, would allow.
That righteous cause (such power hath freedom) bound,
For one hostility, in friendly league,
Ethereal natures and the worst of slaves;
Was served by rival advocates that came
From regions opposite as heaven and hell.
One courage seemed to animate them all:
And, from the dazzling conquests daily gained
By their united efforts, there arose
A proud and most presumptuous confidence
In the transcendent wisdom of the age,
And her discernment; not alone in rights,
And in the origin and bounds of power
Social and temporal; but in laws divine,
Deduced by reason, or to faith revealed.
An overweening trust was raised; and fear
Cast out, alike of person and of thing.
Plague from this union spread, whose subtle bane
The strongest did not easily escape;




444             The   Excursion
And He, what wonder! took a mortal taint..
How shall I trace the change, how bear to tell
That he broke faith with them whom he had laid
In earth's dark chambers, with a Christian's hope!
An infidel contempt of holy writ
Stole by degrees upon his mind; and hence
Life, like that Roman Janus, double-faced;
Vilest hypocrisy —the laughing, gay
Hypocrisy, not leagued with fear, but pride.
Smooth words he had to wheedle simple souls;
But, for disciples of the inner school,
Old freedom was old servitude, and they
The wisest whose opinions stooped the least
To known restraints; -and who most boldly drew
Hopeful prognostications from a creed,
That, in the light of false philosophy,
Spread like a halo round a misty moon,
Widening its circle as the storms advance.
His sacred function was at length renounced;
And every day and every place enjoyed
The unshackled layman's natural liberty;
Speech, manners, morals, all without disguise.
I do not wish to wrong him; though the course
Of private life licentiously displayed
Unhallowed actions-planted like a crown
Upon the insolent aspiring brow
-Of spurious notions-worn as open signs
Of prejudice subdued-still he retained,
'Mid much abasement, what he had received
From nature, an intense and glowing mind.
Wherefore, when humbled Liberty grew weak,
And mortal sickness on her face appeared,
He coloured objects to his own desire
As with a lover's passion. Yet his moods,
Of pain were keen as those of better men,
Nay keener, as his fortitude was less:
And he continued, when worse days were come,
To deal about his sparkling eloquence,
Struggling against the strange reverse with zeal
That showed like happiness. But, in despite
Of all this outside bravery, within,
He neither felt encouragement nor hope:
For moral dignity, and strength of mind,
Were wanting; and simplicity of life;




The Excursion                  445
And reverence for himself; and, last and best,
Confiding thoughts, through love and fear of Him
Before whose sight the troubles of this world
Are vain, as billows in a tossing sea.
The glory of the times fading awayThe splendour, which had given a festal air
To self-importance, hallowed it, and veiled
From his own sight-this gone, he forfeited
All joy in human nature; was consumed,
And vexed, and chafed, by levity and scorn,
And fruitless indignation; galled by pride;
Made desperate by contempt of men who throve
Before his sight in power or fame, and won,
Without desert, what he desired; weak men,
Too weak even for his envy or his hate!
Tormented thus, after a wandering course
Of discontent, and inwardly opprest
With malady-in part, I fear, provoked
By weariness of life-he fixed his home,
Or, rather say, sate down by very chance,
Among these rugged hills; where now he dwells,
And wastes the sad remainder of his hours,
Steeped in a self-indulging spleen, that wants not
Its own voluptuousness;-on this resolved,
With this content, that he will live and die
Forgotten, -at safe distance from 'a world
Not moving to his mind."'
These serious words
Closed the preparatory notices
That served my Fellow-traveller to beguile
The way, while we advanced up that wide vale.
Diverging now (as if his quest had been
Some secret of the mountains, cavern, fall
Of water, or some lofty eminence,
Renowned for splendid prospect far and wide)
We scaled, without a track to ease our steps,
A steep ascent; and reached a dreary plain,
With a tumultuous waste of huge hill tops
Before us; savage region! which I paced
Dispirited: when, all at once, behold!
Beneath our feet, a little lowly vale,
A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high
Among the mountains; even as if the spot
Had been from eldest time by wish of theirs




446


The Excursion


So placed, to be shut out from all the world!
Urn-like it was in shape, deep as an urn;
With rocks encompassed, save that to the south
Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge
Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close;
A quiet treeless nook, with two green fields,
A liquid pool that glittered in the sun,
And one bare dwelling; one abode, no more!
It seemed the home of poverty and toil,
Though not of want: the little fields, made green
By husbandry of many thrifty years,
Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland house.
-There crows the cock, single in his domain:
The small birds find in spring no thicket there
To shroud them; only from the neighbouring vales
The cuckoo, straggling up to the hill tops,
Shouteth faint tidings of some gladder place.
Ah! what a sweet Recess, thought I, is here!
Instantly throwing down my limbs at ease
Upon a bed of heath;-full many a spot
Of hidden beauty have I chanced to espy
Among the mountains; never one like this;
So lonesome, and so perfectly secure;
Not melancholy-no, for it is-green,
And bright, and fertile, furnished in itself
With the few needful things that life requires.
-In rugged arms how softly does it lie,
How tenderly protected! Far and near
We have an image of the pristine earth,
The planet in its nakedness: were this
Man's only dwelling, sole appointed seat,
First, last, and single, in the breathing world,
It could not be more quiet; peace is here
Or nowhere; days unruffled by the gale
Of public news or private; years that pass
Forgetfully; uncalled upon to pay
The common penalties of mortal life,
Sickness, or accident, or grief, or pain.
On these and kindred thoughts intent I lay
In silence musing by my Comrade's side,
He also silent; when from out the heart
Of that profound abyss a solemn voice,
Or several voices in one solemn sound,
Was heard ascending; mournful, deep, and slow




The Excursion                  447
The cadence, as of psalms-a funeral dirge!
We listened, looking down upon the hut,
But seeing no one: meanwhile from below
The strain continued, spiritual as before;
And now distinctly could I recognise
These words:-" Shall in the grave thy love be known,
In death thy faithfulness "-" God rest his soul!"
Said the old man, abruptly breaking silence,"He is departed, and finds peace at last!"
This scarcely spoken, and those holy strains
Not ceasing, forth appeared in view a band
Of rustic persons, from behind the hut
Bearing a coffin in the midst, with which
They shaped their course along the sloping side
Of that small valley, singing as they moved;
A sober company and few, the men
Bare-headed, and all decently attired!
Some steps when they had thus advanced, the dirge
Ended; and, from the stillness that ensued
Recovering, to my Friend I said, " You spake,
Methought, with apprehension that these rites
Are paid to Him upon whose shy retreat
This day we purposed to intrude."-" I did so,
But let us hence, that we may learn the truth:
Perhaps it is not he but some one else
For whom this pious service is performed;
Some other tenant of the solitude."
So, to a steep and difficult descent
Trusting ourselves, we wound from crag to crag
Where passage could be won; and, as the last
Of the mute train, behind the heathy top
Of that off-sloping outlet, disappeared,
I, more impatient in my downward course,
Had landed upon easy ground; and there
Stood waiting for my Comrade. When behold
An object that enticed my steps aside!
A narrow, winding, entry opened out
Into a platform-that lay, sheepfold-wise,
Enclosed between an upright mass of rock
And one old moss-grown wall;-a cool recess,
And fanciful! For where the rock and wall
Met in an angle, hung a penthouse, framed
By thrusting two rude staves into the wall
And overlaying them with mountain sods;




448             The   Excursion
To weather-fend a little turf-built seat
Whereon a full-grown man might rest, nor dread
The burning sunshine, or a transient shower;
But the whole plainly wrought by children's hands!
Whose skill had thronged the floor with a proud show
Of baby-houses, curiously arranged;
Nor wanting ornament of walks between,
With mimic trees inserted in the turf,
And gardens interposed. Pleased with the sight,.
I could not choose but beckon to my'Guide,
Who, entering, round him threw a careless glance,
Impatient to pass on, when I exclaimed,
" Lo! what is here?" and, stooping down, drew forth
A book, that, in the midst of stones and moss
And wreck of party-coloured earthen-ware,
Aptly disposed, had lent its help to raise
One of those petty structures. " His it must be! "
Exclaimed the Wanderer, " cannot but be his,
And he is gone!" The book, which in my hand
Had opened of itself (for it was swoln
With searching damp, and seemingly had lain
To the injurious elements exposed
From week to week,) I found to be a work
In the French tongue, a Novel of Voltaire,
His famous Optimist. "Unhappy Man!"
Exclaimed my Friend: "here then has been to him
Retreat within retreat, a sheltering-place
Within how deep a shelter I He had fits,
Even to the last, of genuine tenderness,
And loved the haunts of children: here, no doubt,
Pleasing and pleased, he shared their simple sports,
Or sate companionless; and here the book,
Left and forgotten in his careless way,
Must by the cottage-children have been found:
Heaven bless them, and their inconsiderate work!
To what odd purpose have the darlings turned
This sad memorial of their hapless friend!"
" Me," said I, "most doth it surprise, to find
Such book in such a place! " —"A book it is,"
He answered, "to the Person suited well,
Though little suited to surrounding things:
'Tis strange, I grant; and stranger still had been
To see the Man who owned it, dwelling'here,
With one poor shepherd, far from all the world!



The Excursion                 449
Now, if our errand hath been thrown away,
As from these intimations I forebode,
Grieved shall I be-less for my sake than yours,
And least of all for him who is no more."
s
By this, the book was in the old Man's hand;
And he continued, glancing on the leaves
An eye of scorn:-" The lover," said he, "doomed
To love when hope hath failed him-whom no depth
Of privacy is deep enough to hide,
Hath yet his bracelet or his lock of hair,
And that is joy to him. When change of times
Hath summoned kings to scaffolds, do but give
The faithful servant, who must hide his head
Henceforth in whatsoever nook he may,
A kerchief sprinkled with his master's blood,
And he too hath his comforter. How poor,
Beyond all poverty how destitute,
Must that Man have been left, who, hither driven,
Flying or seeking, could yet bring with him
No dearer relique, and no better stay,
Than this dull product of a scoffer's pen,
Impure conceits discharging from a heart
Hardened by impious pride!-I did not fear
To tax you with this journey;"-mildly said
My venerable Friend, as forth we stepped
Into the presence of the cheerful light"For I have knowledge that you do not shrink
From moving spectacles;-but let us on."
So speaking, on he went, and at the word
I followed, till he made a sudden stand:
For full in view, approaching through a gate
That opened from the enclosure of green fields
Into the rough uncultivated ground,
Behold the Man whom he had fancied dead!
I knew from his deportment, mien, and dress,
That it could be no other; a pale face,
A meagre person, tall, and in a garb
Not rustic-dull and faded like himself!
He saw us not, though distant but few steps;
For he was busy, dealing, from a store
Upon a broad leaf carried, choicest strings
Of red ripe currants; gift by which he strove,
With intermixture of endearing words,
To soothe a Child, who walked beside him, weeping
Q




45o


The Excursion


As if disconsolate.-" They to the grave
Are bearing him, my Little-one," he said,
"To the dark pit; but he will feel no pain;
His body is at rest, his soul in heaven."
More might have followed-but my honoured Friend
Broke in upon the Speaker with a frank
And cordial greeting.-Vivid was the light
That flashed and sparkled from the other's eyes;
He was all fire: no shadow on his brow
Remained, nor sign of sickness on his face.
Hands joined he with his Visitant,-a grasp,
An eager grasp'; and many moments' spaceWhen the first glow of pleasure was no more,
And, of the sad appearance which at once
Had vanished, much was come and coming backAn amicable smile retained the life
Which it had unexpectedly received,
Upon his hollow cheek. "How kind," he said,
"Nor could your coming have been better timed;
For this, you see, is in our narrow world
A day of sorrow. I have here a charge "And, speaking thus, he patted tenderly
The sun-burnt forehead of the weeping child"A little mourner, whom it is my task
To comfort;-but how came ye?-if yon track
(Which doth at once befriend us and betray)
Conducted hither your most welcome feet,
Ye could not miss the funeral train-they yet
Have scarcely disappeared."  "This blooming Child,"
Said the old Man, "is of an age to weep
At any grave or solemn spectacle,
Inly distressed or overpowered with awe,
He knows not wherefore;-but the boy to-day,
Perhaps is shedding orphan's tears; you also
Must have sustained a loss."-" The hand of Death,"
He answered, "has been here; but could not well
Have fallen more lightly, if it had not fallen
Upon myself."-The other left these words
Unnoticed, thus continuing"From yon crag,
Down whose steep sides we dropped into the vale,
We heard the hymn they sang-a solemn sound
Heard anywhere; but in a place like this
'Tis more than human! Many precious rites




The Excursion


45I


And customs of our rural ancestry
Are gone, or stealing from us; this, I hope,
Will last for ever. Oft on my way have I
Stood still, though but a casual passenger,
So much I felt the awfulness of life,
In that one moment when the corse is lifted
In silence, with a hush of decency;
Then from the threshold moves with song of peace,
And confidential yearnings, towards its home,
Its final home on earth. What traveller-who(How far soe'er a stranger) does not own
The bond of brotherhood, when he sees them go,
A mute procession on the houseless road;
Or passing by some single tenement
Or clustered dwellings, where again they raise
The monitory voice? But most of all
It touches, it confirms, and elevates,
Then, when the body, soon to be consigned
Ashes to ashes, dust bequeathed to dust,
Is raised from the church-aisle, and forward borne
Upon the shoulders of the next in love,
The nearest in affection or in blood;
Yea, by the very mourners who had knelt
Beside the coffin, resting on its lid
In silent grief their unuplifted heads,
And heard meanwhile the Psalmist's mournful plaint,
And that most awful scripture which declares
We shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed!
-Have I not seen-ye likewise may have seenSon, husband, brothers-brothers side by side,
And son and father also side by side,
Rise from that posture:-and in concert move,
On the green turf following the vested Priest,
Four dear supporters of one senseless weight,
From which they do not shrink, and urider which
They faint not, but advance towards the- open grave
Step after step-together, with their firm
Unhidden faces: he that suffers most,
He outwardly, and inwardly perhaps,
The most serene, with most undaunted eye!Oh! blest are they who live and die like these,
Loved with such love, and with such sorrow mourned!"
"That poor Man taken hence to-day," replied
The Solitary, with a faint sarcastic smile




452             The Excursion
Which did not please me, " must be deemed, I fear,
Of the unblest; for he will surely sink
Into his mother earth without such pomp
Of grief, depart without occasion given
By him for such array of fortitude.
Full seventy winters hath he lived, and mark!
This simple Child will mourn his one short hour,
And I shall miss him: scanty tribute! yet,
This wanting, he would leave the sight of men,
If love were his sole claim upon their care,
Like a ripe date which in the desert falls
Without a hand to gather it."
At this
I interposed, though loth to speak, and said,
" Can it be thus among so small a band
As ye must needs be here? in such a place
I would not willingly, methinks, lose sight
Of a departing cloud."-" 'Twas not for love "Answered the sick Man with a careless voice"That I came hither; neither have I found
Among associates who have power of speech,
Nor in such other converse as is here,
Temptation so prevailing as to change
That mood, or undermine my first resolve."
Then, speaking in like careless sort, he said
To my benign Companion,-" Pity 'tis
That fortune did not guide you to this house
A few days earlier; then would you have seen
What stuff the Dwellers in a solitude,
That seems by Nature hollowed out to be
The seat and bosom of pure innocence,
Are made of; an ungracious matter this!
Which, for truth's sake, yet in remembrance too
Of past discussions with this zealous friend
And advocate of humble life, I now
Will force upon his notice; undeterred
By the example of his own pure course,
And that respect and deference which a soul
May fairly claim, by niggard age enriched
In what she most doth value, love of God
And his frail creature Man;-but ye shall hear.
I talk-and ye are standing in the sun
Without refreshment!"
Quickly had he spoken,
And, with light steps still quicker than his words,




The Excursion                  453
Led toward the Cottage. Homely was the spot;
And, to my feeling, ere we reached the door,
Had almost a forbidding nakedness;
Less fair, I grant, even painfully less fair,
Than it appeared when from the beetling rock
We had looked down upon it. All within,
As left by the departed company,
Was silent; save the solitary clock
That on mine ear ticked with a mournful sound.Following our Guide we clomb the cottage-stairs
And reached a small apartment dark and low,
Which was no sooner entered than our Host
Said gaily, "This is my domain, my cell,
My hermitage, my cabin, what you willI love it better than a snail his house.
But now ye shall be feasted with our best."
So, with more ardour than an unripe girl
Left one day mistress of her mother's stores,
He went about his hospitable task.
My eyes were busy, and my thoughts no less,
And pleased I looked upon my grey-haired Friend,
As if to thank him; he returned that look,
Cheered, plainly, and yet serious. What a wreck
Had we about us! scattered was the floor,
And, in like sort, chair, window-seat, and shelf,
With books, maps, fossils, withered plants and flowers,
And tufts of mountain moss. Mechanic tools
Lay intermixed with scraps of paper, some
Scribbled with verse: a broken angling-rod
And shattered telescope, together linked
By cobwebs, stood within a dusty nook;
And instruments of music, some half-made,
Some in disgrace, hung dangling from the walls.
But speedily the promise was fulfilled;
A feast before us, and a courteous Host
Inviting us in glee to sit and eat.
A napkin, white as foam of that rough brook
By which it had been bleached, overspread the board;
And was itself half-covered with a store
Of dainties-oaten bread, curd, cheese, and cream;
And cakes of butter curiously embossed,
Butter that had imbibed from meadow-flowers
A golden hue, delicate as their own
Faintly reflected in a lingering stream.




454             The Excursion
Nor lacked, for more delight on that warm day,
Our table, small parade of garden fruits,
And whortle-berries from the mountain side.
The Child, who long ere this had stilled his sobs,
Was now a help to his late comforter,
And moved, a willing Page, as he was bid,
Ministering to our need.
In genial mood,
While at our pastoral banquet thus we sate
Fronting the window of that little cell,
I could not, ever and anon, forbear
To glance an upward look on two huge Peaks
That from some other vale peered into this.
"Those lusty twins," exclaimed our host," if here
It were your lot to dwell, would soon become
Your prized companions.-Many are the notes
Which, in his tuneful course, the wind draws forth
From rocks, woods, caverns, heaths, and dashing shores;
And well those lofty brethren bear their part
In the wild concert-chiefly when the storm
Rides high; then all the upper air they fill
With roaring sound, that ceases not to flow,
Like smoke, along the level of the blast,
In mighty current; theirs, too, is the song
Of stream -and headlong flood that seldom fails;
And, in the grim and breathless hour of noon,
Methinks that I have heard them echo back
The thunder's greeting. Nor have nature's laws
Left them ungifted with a power to yield
Music of finer tone; a harmony,
So do I call it, though it be the hand
Of silence, though there be no voice;-the clouds,
The mist, the shadows, light of golden suns,
Motions of moonlight, all come thither-touch,
And have an answer-thither come, and shape
A language not unwelcome to sick hearts
And idle spirits:-there the sun himself,
At the calm close of summer's longest day,
Rests his substantial orb;-between those heights
And on the top of either pinnacle,
More keenly than elsewhere in night's blue vault,
Sparkle the stars, as of their station proud.
Thoughts are not busier in the mind of man
Than the mute agents stirring there:-alone
Here do I sit and watch -"




The Excursion


455


A fall of voice,
Regretted like the nightingale's last note,
Had scarcely closed this high-wrought strain of rapture
Ere with inviting smile the Wanderer said:
"Now for the tale with which you threatened us!"
" In truth the threat escaped me unawares:
Should the tale tire you, let this challenge stand
For my excuse. Dissevered from mankind,
As to your eyes and thoughts we must have seemed
When ye looked down upon us from the crag,
Islanders 'mid a stormy mountain sea,
We are not so;-perpetually we touch
Upon the vulgar ordinances of the world;
And he, whom this our cottage hath to-day
Relinquished, lived dependent for his bread
Upon the laws of public charity.
The Housewife, tempted by such slender gains
As might from that occasion be distilled,
Opened, as she before had done for me,
Her doors to admit this homeless Pensioner;
The portion gave of coarse but wholesome fare
Which appetite required-a blind dull nook,
Such as she had, the kennel of his rest!
This, in itself not ill, would yet have been
Ill borne in earlier life; but his was now
The still contentedness of seventy years.
Calm did he sit under the wide-spread tree
Of his old age: and yet.less calm and meek,
Winningly meek or venerably calm,
Than slow and torpid; paying in this wise
A penalty, if penalty it were,
For spendthrift feats, excesses of his prime.
I loved the old Man, for I pitied him!
A task it was, I own, to hold discourse
With one so slow in gathering up his thoughts,
But he was a cheap pleasure to my eyes;
Mild, inoffensive, ready in his way,
And helpful to his utmost power: and there
Our housewife knew full well what she possessed!
He was her vassal of all labour, tilled
Her garden, from the pasture fetched her kine;
And, one among the orderly array
Of hay-makers, beneath the burning sun
Maintained his place; or heedfully pursued
His course, on errands bound, to other vales,




456             The Excursion
Leading sometimes an inexperienced child
Too young for any profitable task.
So moved he like a shadow that performed
Substantial service. Mark me now, and learn
For what reward! —The moon her monthly round
Hath not completed since our dame, the queen
Of this one cottage and this lonely dale,
Into my little sanctuary rushedVoice to a rueful treble humanized,
And features in deplorable dismay.
I treat the matter lightly, but, alas!
It is most serious: persevering rain
Had fallen in torrents; all the mountain tops
Were hidden, and black vapours coursed their sides;
This had I seen, and saw; but, till she spake,
Was wholly ignorant that my ancient FriendWho at her bidding, early and alone,
Had clomb aloft to delve the moorland turf
For winter fuel -to his noontide meal
Returned not, and now, haply, on the heights
Lay at the mercy of this raging storm.
'Inhuman! '-said I, 'was an old Man's life
Not worth the trouble of a thought?-alas!
This notice comes too late.' With joy I saw
Her husband enter-from a distant vale.
We sallied forth together; found the tools
Which the neglected veteran had dropped,
But through all quarters looked for him in vain.
We shouted-but no answer! Darkness fell
Without remission of the blast or shower,
And fears for our own safety drove us home.
I, who weep little, did, I will confess,
The moment I was seated here alone,
Honour my little cell with some few tears
Which anger and resentment could not dry.
All night the storm endured; and, soon as help
Had been collected from the neighbouring vale,
With morning we renewed our quest: the wind
Was fallen, the rain abated, but the hills
Lay shrouded in impenetrable mist;
And long and hopelessly we sought in vain:
Till, chancing on that lofty ridge to pass
A heap of ruin-almost without walls
And wholly without roof (the bleached remains
Of a small chapel, where, in ancient time,




The Excursion


457


The peasants of these lonely valleys used
To meet for worship on that central height)We there espied the object of our search,
Lying full three parts buried among tufts
Of heath-plant, under and above him strewn,
To baffle, as he might, the watery storm:
And there we found him breathing peaceably,
Snug as a child that hides itself in sport
'Mid a green hay-cock in a sunny field.
We spake-he made reply, but would not stir
At our entreaty; less from want of power
Than apprehension and bewildering thoughts.
So was he lifted gently from the ground,
And with their freight homeward the shepherds moved
Through the dull mist, I following-when a step,
A single step, that freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapour, opened to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul!
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,
Was of a mighty city-boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth,
Far sinking into splendour-without end!
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright,
In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars-illumination of all gems!
By earthly nature had the effect been wrought
Upon the dark materials of the storm
Now pacified; on them, and on the coves
And mountain-steeps and-summits, whereunto
The vapours had receded, taking there
Their station under a cerulean sky.
Oh, 'twas an unimaginable sight!
Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf,
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,
Molten together, and composing thus,
Each lost in each, that marvellous array
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge
Fantastic pomp of structure without name,
Q 2




458             The Excursion
In fleecy folds voluminous, enwrapped.
Right in the midst, where interspace appeared
Of open court, an object like a throne
Under a shining canopy of state
Stood fixed; and fixed resemblances were seen
To implements of ordinary use,
But vast in size, in substance glorified;
Such as by Hebrew Prophets were beheld
In vision-forms uncouth of mightiest power
For admiration and mysterious awe.
This little Vale, a dwelling-place of Man,
Lay low beneath my feet; 'twas visibleI saw not, but I felt that it was there..
That which I saw was the revealed abode
Of Spirits in beatitude: my heart
Swelled in my breast-' I have been dead,' I cried,
'And now I live! Oh! wherefore do I live?'
And with that pang I prayed to be no more!-But I forget our Charge, as utterly
I then forgot him:-there I stood and gazed:
The apparition faded not away,
And I descended.
Having reached the house,
I found its rescued inmate safely lodged,
And in serene possession of himself,
Beside a fire whose genial warmth seemed met
By a faint shining from the heart, a gleam,
Of comfort, spread over his pallid face,
Great show of joy the housewife made, and truly
Was glad to find her conscience set at ease;
And not less glad, for sake of her good name,
That the poor Sufferer had escaped with life.
But, though he seemed at first to have received
No harm, and uncomplaining as before
Went through his usual tasks, a silent change
Soon showed itself: he lingered three short weeks;
And from the cottage hath been borne to-day.
So ends my dolorous tale, and glad I am
That it is ended." At these words he turnedAnd, with blithe air of open fellowship,
Brought from the cupboard wine and stouter cheer,
Like one who would be merry. Seeing this,
My grey-haired Friend said courteously-" Nay, nay,
You have regaled us as a hermit ought;,~ A;




The Excursion                    459
Now let us forth into the sun! "-Our Host
Rose, though reluctantly, and forth we went.
BOOK THIRD
DESPONDENCY
ARGUMENT
Images in the Valley-Another Recess in it entered and describedWanderer's sensations- Solitary's excited by the same objects-Contrast
between these-Despondency of the Solitary gently reproved-Conversation exhibiting the Solitary's past and present opinions and feelings,
till he enters upon his own History -at length-His domestic felicityAfflictions-Dejection-Roused by the French Revolution-Disappointment and disgust-Voyage to America-Disappointment and disgust
pursue him-His return-His languor and depression of mind, from
want of faith in the great truths of Religion, and want of confidence in
the virtue of Mankind.
A HUMMING BEE-a little tinkling rillA pair of falcons wheeling on the wing,
In clamorous agitation, round the crest
Of a tall rock, their airy citadelBy each and all of these the pensive ear
Was greeted, in the silence that ensued,
When through the cottage-threshold we had passed,
And, deep within that lonesome valley, stood
Once more beneath the concave of a blue
And cloudless sky.-Anon exclaimed our HostTriumphantly dispersing with the taunt
The shade of discontent which on his brow
Had gathered,-" Ye have left my cell,-but see
How Nature hems you in with friendly arms!
And by her help ye are my prisoners still.
But which way shall I lead you?-how contrive,
In spot so parsimoniously endowed,
That the brief hours, which yet remain, may reap
Some recompense of knowledge or delight?"
So saying, round he looked, as if perplexed;
And, to remove those doubts, my grey-haired Friend
Said-" Shall we take this pathway for our guide?Upward it winds, as if, in summer heats,
Its line had first been fashioned by the flock
Seeking a place of refuge at the root
Of yon black Yew-tree, whose protruded boughs
Darken the silver bosom of the crag,
From which she draws her meagre sustenance.
There in commodious shelter may we rest.




460


The Excursion


Or let us trace this streamlet to its source;
Feebly it tinkles with an earthy sound,
And a few steps may bring us to the spot
Where, haply, crowned with flowerets and green herbs,
The mountain infant to the sun comes forth,
Like human life from darkness."-A quick turn
Through a strait passage of encumbered ground,
Proved that such hope was vain:-for now we stood
Shut out from prospect of the open vale,
And saw the water, that composed this rill,
Descending, disembodied, and diffused
O'er the smooth surface of an ample crag,
Lofty, and steep, and naked as a tower.
All further progress here was barred; —And who,
Thought I, if master of a vacant hour,
Here would not linger, willingly detained?
Whether to such wild objects he were led
When copious rains have magnified the stream
Into a loud and white-robed waterfall,
Or introduced at this more quiet time.
Upon a semicirque of turf-clad ground,
The hidden nook discovered to our view
A mass of rock, resembling, as it lay
Right at the foot of that moist precipice,
A stranded ship, with keel upturned, that rests
Fearless of winds and waves. Three several stones
Stood near, of smaller size, and not unlike
To monumental pillars: and, from these
Some little space disjoined, a pair were seen,
That with united shoulders bore aloft
A fragment, like an altar, flat and smooth:
Barren the tablet, yet thereon appeared
A tall and shining holly, that had found
A hospitable chink, and stood upright,
As if inserted by some human hand
In mockery, to wither in the sun,
Or lay its beauty flat before a breeze,
The first that entered. But no breeze did now
Find entrance;-high or low appeared no trace
Of motion, save the water that descended,
Diffused adown that barrier of steep rock,
And softly creeping, like a breath of air,
Such as is sometimes seen, and hardly seen,
To brush the still breast of a crystal lake.




The Excursion


461


"Behold a cabinet for sages built,
Which kings might envy! "-Praise to this effect
Broke from the happy old Man's reverend lip;
Who to the Solitary turned, and said,
" In sooth, with love's familiar privilege,
You have decried the wealth which is your own.
Among these rocks and stones, methinks, I see
More than the heedless impress that belongs
To lonely nature's casual work: they bear
A semblance strange of power intelligent,
And of design not wholly worn away.
Boldest of plants that ever faced the wind,
How gracefully that slender shrub looks forth
From its fantastic birth-place! And I own,
Some shadowy intimations haunt me here,
That in these shows a chronicle survives
Of purposes akin to those of Man,
But wrought with mightier arm than now prevails.
-Voiceless the stream descends into the gulf
With timid lapse;-and lo! while in this strait
I stand-the chasm of sky above my head
Is heaven's profoundest azure; no domain
For fickle, short-lived clouds to occupy,
Or to pass through; but rather an abyss
In which the everlasting stars abide;
And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt
The curious eye to look for them by day.
-Hail Contemplation! from the stately towers,
Reared by the industrious hand of human art
To lift thee high above the misty air
And turbulence of murmuring cities vast;
From academic groves, that have for thee
Been planted, hither come and find a lodge
To which thou mayst resort for holier peace,From whose calm centre thou, through height or depth,
Mayst penetrate, wherever truth shall lead;
Measuring through all degrees, until the scale
Of time and conscious nature disappear,
Lost in unsearchable eternity!"
A pause ensued; and with minuter care
We scanned the various features of the scene:
And soon the Tenant of that lonely vale
With courteous voice thus spake"I should have grieved




462


The Excursion


Hereafter, not escaping self-reproach,
If from my poor retirement ye had gone
Leaving this nook unvisited: but, in sooth,
Your unexpected presence had so rousedMy spirits, that they were bent on enterprise;
And, like an ardent hunter, I forgot,
Or, shall I say?-disdained, the game that lurks
At my own door. The shapes before our eyes
And their arrangement, doubtless must be deemed
The sport of Nature, aided by blind Chance
Rudely to mock the works of toiling Man.
And hence, this upright shaft of unhewn stone,
From Fancy, willing to set off her stores
By sounding titles, hath acquired the name
Of Pompey's pillar; that I gravely style
My Theban obelisk; and, there, behold
A Druid cromlech!-thus I entertain
The antiquarian humour, and am pleased
To skim along the surfaces of things,
Beguiling harmlessly the listless hours.
But if the spirit be oppressed by sense
Of instability, revolt, decay,
And change, and emptiness, these freaks of Nature
And her blind helper Chance, do then suffice
To quicken, and to aggravate-to feed
Pity and scorn, and melancholy pride,
Not less than that huge Pile (from some abyss
Of mortal power unquestionably sprung)
Whose hoary- diadem of pendent rocks
Confines the shrill-voiced whirlwind, round and round
Eddying within its vast circumference,
On Sarum's naked plain-than pyramid
Of Egypt, unsubverted, undissolvedOr Syria's marble ruins towering high
Above the sandy desert, in the light
Of sun or moon.-Forgive me, if I say
That an appearance which hath raised your minds
To an exalted pitch (the self-same cause
Different effect producing) is for me
Fraught rather with depression than delight,
Though shame it were, could I not look around,
By the reflection of your pleasure, pleased.
Yet happier in my judgment, even than you
With your bright transports fairly may be deemed,
The wandering Herbalist,-who, clear alike




The Excursion                  463
From vain, and, that worse evil, vexing thoughts,
Casts, if he ever chance to enter here,
Upon these uncouth Forms a slight regard
Of transitory interest, and peeps round
For some rare floweret of the hills, or plant
Of craggy fountain; what he hopes for wins,
Or learns, at least, that 'tis not to be won:
Then, keen and eager, as a fine-nosed hound,
By soul-engrossing instinct driven along
Through wood or open field, the harmless Man
Departs, intent upon his onward quest!Nor is that Fellow-wanderer, so deem I,
Less to be envied, (you may trace him oft
By scars which his activity has left
Beside our roads and pathways, though, thank Heaven!
This covert nook reports not of his hand)
He who with pocket-hammer smites the edge
Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised
In weather-stains or crusted o'er by Nature
With her first growths, detaching by the stroke
A chip or splinter-to resolve his doubts;
And, with that ready answer satisfied,
The substance classes by some barbarous name,
And hurries on; or from the fragments picks
His specimen, if but haply interveined
With sparkling mineral, or should crystal cube
Lurk in its cells-and thinks himself enriched,
Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before!
Intrusted safely each to his pursuit,
Earnest alike, let both from hill to hill
Range; if it please them, speed from clime to clime;
The mind is full-and free from pain their pastime."
"Then," said I, interposing, " One is near,
Who cannot but possess in your esteem
Place worthier still of envy. May I name,
Without offence, that fair-faced cottage-boy?
Dame Nature's pupil of the lowest form,
Youngest apprentice in the school of art!
Him, as we entered from the open glen,
You might have noticed, busily engaged,
Heart, soul, and hands,-in mending the defects
Left in the fabric of a leaky dam
Raised for enabling this penurious stream
To turn a slender mill (that new-made plaything)
For his delight-the happiest he of all "




464             The Excursion
" Far happiest," answered the desponding Man,
"If, such as now he is, he might remain!
Ah! what avails imagination high
Or question deep? what profits all that earth,
Or heaven's blue vault, is suffered to put forth
Of impulse or allurement, for the Soul
To quit the beaten track of life, and soar
Far as she finds a yielding element
In past or future; far as she can go
Through time or space if neither in the one,
Nor in the other region, nor in aught
That Fancy, dreaming o'er the map of things,
Hath placed beyond these penetrable bounds,
Words of assurance can be heard; if nowhere
A habitation, for consummate good,
Or for progressive virtue, by the search
Can be attained,-a better sanctuary
From doubt and sorrow, than the senseless grave?"
" Is this," the grey-haired Wanderer mildly said,
"The voice, which we so lately overheard,
To that same child, addressing tenderly
The consolations of a hopeful mind?
'His body is at rest, his soul in heaven.'
These were your words; and, verily, methinks
Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar."The Other, not displeased,
Promptly replied-" My notion is the same.
And I, without reluctance, could decline
All act of inquisition whence we rise,
And what, when breath hath ceased, we may become.
Here are we, in a bright and breathing world.
Our origin, what matters it? In lack
Of worthier explanation, say at once
With the American (a thought which suits
The place where now we stand) that certain men
Leapt out together from a rocky cave;
And these were the first parents of mankind:
Or, if a different image be -recalled
By the warm sunshine, and the jocund voice
Of insects chirping out their careless lives
On these soft beds of thyme-besprinkled turf,
Choose, with the gay Athenian, a conceit
As sound-blithe race! whose mantles were bedecked
With golden grasshoppers, in sign that they




The Excursion


465


Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil
Whereon their endless generations dwelt.
But stop!-these theoretic fancies jar
On serious minds: then, as the Hindoos draw
Their holy Ganges from a skiey fount,
Even so deduce the stream of human life
From seats of power divine; and hope, or trust,
That our existence winds her stately course
Beneath the sun, like Ganges, to make part
Of a living ocean; or, to sink engulfed,
Like Niger, in impenetrable sands
And utter darkness: thought which may be faced,
Though comfortless 1 -Not of myself I speak:
Such acquiescence neither doth imply,
In me, a meekly-bending spirit soothed
By natural piety; nor a lofty mind,
By philosophic discipline prepared
For calm subjection to acknowledged law;
Pleased to have been, contented not to be.
Such palms I boast not,-no! to me, who find,
Reviewing my past way, much to condemn,
Little to praise, and nothing to regret,
(Save some remembrances of dream-like joys
That scarcely seem to have belonged to me)
If I must take my choice between the pair
That rule alternately the weary hours,
Night is than day more acceptable; sleep
Doth, in my estimate of good, appear
A better state than waking; death than sleep:
Feelingly sweet is stillness after storm,
Though under covert of the wormy ground!
Yet be it said, in justice to myself,
That in more genial times, when I was free
To explore the destiny of human kind
(Not as an intellectual game pursued
With curious subtilty, from wish to cheat
Irksome sensations; but by love of truth
Urged on, or haply by intense delight
In feeding thought, wherever thought could feed)
I did not rank with those (too dull or nice,
For to my judgment such they then appeared,
Or too aspiring, thankless at the best)
Who, in this frame of human life, perceive




466             The Excursion
An object whereunto their souls are tied
In discontented wedlock; nor did e'er,
From me, those dark impervious shades, that hang
Upon the region whither we are bound,
Exclude a power to enjoy the vital beams
Of present sunshine.-Deities that float
On wings, angelic Spirits! I could muse
O'er what from eldest time we have been told
Of your bright forms and glorious faculties,
And with the imagination rest content,
Not wishing more; repining not to tread
The little sinuous path of earthly care,
By flowers embellished, and by springs refreshed.
-' Blow winds of autumn!-let your chilling breath
'Take the live herbage from the mead, and strip
'The shady forest of its green attire,'And let the bursting clouds to fury rouse
'The gentle brooks!-Your desolating sway,
'Sheds,' I exclaimed, 'no sadness upon me,
'And no disorder in your rage I find.
'What dignity, what beauty, in this change
'From mild to angry, and from sad to gay,
'Alternate and revolving! How benign,
'How rich in animation and delight,
How bountiful:these elements-compared
With aught, as more desirable and fair,
'Devised by fancy for the golden age;
'Or the perpetual warbling that prevails
'In Arcady, beneath unaltered skies,
'Through the long year in constant quiet bound,
'Night hushed as night, and day serene as day!'
-But why this tedious record? —Age, we know,
Is garrulous; and solitude is apt
To anticipate the privilege of Age,
From — far ye come; and surely with a hope
Of better entertainment:-let us hence!"
Loth to forsake the spot, and still more loth
To be diverted from our present theme,
I said, "My thoughts, agreeing, Sir, with yours,
Would push this censure farther;-for, if smiles
Of scornful pity be the just reward
Of Poesy thus courteously employed
In framing models to improve the scheme
Of Man's existence, and recast the world,




The Excursion                  467
Why should not grave Philosophy be styled,
Herself, a dreamer of a kindred stock,
A dreamer yet more spiritless and dull?
Yes, shall the fine immunities she boasts
Establish sounder titles of esteem
For her, who (all too timid and reserved
For onset, for resistance too inert,
Too weak for suffering, and for hope too tame)
Placed, among flowery gardens curtained round
With world-excluding groves, the brotherhood
Of soft Epicureans, taught-if they
The ends of being would secure, and win
The crown of wisdom-to yield up their souls
To a voluptuous unconcern, preferring
Tranquillity to all things. Or is she,"
I cried, " more worthy of regard, the Power,
Who, for the sake of sterner quiet, closed
The Stoic's heart against the vain approach
Of admiration, and all sense of joy?"
His countenance gave notice that my zeal'
Accorded little with his present mind;
I ceased, and he resumed.-" Ah! gentle Sir,
Slight, if you will, the means; but spare to slight
The end of those, who did, by system, rank,
As the prime object of a wise man's aim,
Security from shock of accident,
Release from fear; and cherished peaceful days
For their own sakes, as mortal life's chief good,
And only reasonable felicity.
What motive drew, what impulse, I would ask,
Through a long course of later ages, drove,
The hermit to his cell in forest wide;
Or what detained him, till his closing eyes
Took their last farewell of the sun ahd stars,
Fast anchored in the desert?-Not alone
Dread of the persecuting sword, remorse,
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged
And unavengeable, defeated pride,
Prosperity subverted, maddening want,
Friendship betrayed, affection unreturned,
Love with despair, or grief in agony;Not always from intolerable pangs
He fled; but, compassed round by pleasure, sighed
For independent happiness; craving peace,




468             The Excursion
The central feeling of all happiness,
Not as a refuge from distress or pain,
A breathing-time,.vacation, or a truce,
But for its absolute self; a life of peace,
Stability without regret or fear;
That hath been, is, and shall be evermore!Such the reward he sought; and wore out life,
There, where on few external things his heart
Was set, and those his own; or, if not his,
Subsisting under nature's stedfast law.
What other yearning was the master tie
Of the monastic brotherhood, upon rock
Aerial, or in green secluded vale,
One after one, collected from afar,
An undissolving fellowship?-What but this,
The universal instinct of repose,
The longing for confirmed tranquillity,
Inward and outward; humble, yet sublime:
The life:where hope and memory are as one;
Where earth is quiet and her face unchanged
Save by the simplest toil of human hands
Or seasons' difference; the immortal Soul
Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed
To meditation in that quietness!Such was their scheme: and though the wished-for end
By multitudes was missed, perhaps attained
By none, they for the attempt, and pains employed,
Do, in my present censure, stand redeemed
From the unqualified disdain, that once
Would have been cast upon them by my voice
Delivering her decisions from the seat
Of forward youth-that scruples not to solve
Doubts, and determine questions, by the rules
Of inexperienced judgment, ever prone
To overweening faith; and is inflamed,
By courage,, to demand from real life
The test of act and suffering, to provoke
Hostility-how dreadful when it comes,
Whether affliction be the foe, or guilt!
A child of earth, I rested, in that stage
Of my past course to which these thoughts advert,
Upon earth's native energies; forgetting
That mine was a condition which required
Nor energy, nor fortitude-a calm




The Excursion


469


Without vicissitude; which, if the like
Had been presented to my view elsewhere,
I might have even been tempted to despise.
But no-for the serene was also bright;
Enlivened happiness with joy o'erflowing,
With joy, and-oh! that memory should survive
To speak the word-with rapture! Nature's boon,
Life's genuine inspiration, happiness
Above what rules can teach, or fancy feign;
Abused, as all possessions are abused
That are not prized according to their worth.
And yet, what worth? what good is given to men,
More solid than the gilded clouds of heaven?
What joy more lasting than a vernal flower?None! 'tis the general plaint of human kind
In solitude: and mutually addressed
From each to all, for wisdom's sake:-This truth
The priest announces from his holy seat:
And, crowned with garlands in the summer grove,
The poet fits it to his pensive lyre.
Yet, ere that final resting-place be gained,
Sharp contradictions may arise, by doom
Of this same life, compelling us to grieve
That the prosperities of love and joy
Should be permitted, oft-times, to endure
So long, and be at once cast down for ever.
Oh! tremble, ye, to whom hath been assigned
A course of days composing happy months,
And they as happy years; the present still
So like the past, and both so firm a pledge
Of a congenial future, that the wheels
Of pleasure move without the aid of hope:
For Mutability is Nature's bane;
And slighted Hope will be avenged; and, when
Ye need her favours, ye shall find her not;
But in her stead-fear-doubt-and agony!"
This was the bitter language of the heart:
But, while he spake, look, gesture, tone of voice,
Though discomposed and vehement, were such
As skill and graceful nature might suggest
To a proficient of the tragic scene
Standing before the multitude, beset
With dark events. Desirous to divert
Or stem the current of the speaker's thoughts,




470


The Excursion


We signified a wish to leave that place
Of stillness and close privacy, a nook
That seemed for self-examination made;
Or, for confession, in the sinner's need,
Hidden from all men's view. To our attempt
He yielded not; but, pointing to a slope
Of mossy turf defended from the sun,And on that couch inviting us to rest,
Full on that tender-hearted Man he turned
A serious eye, and his speech thus renewed.
"You never saw, your eyes did never look
On the bright form of Her whom once I loved:Her silver voice was heard upon the earth,
A sound-unknown to you; else, honoured Friend!
Your heart had borne a pitiable share
Of what I suffered, when I wept that loss,
And suffer now, not seldom, from the thought
That I remember, and can weep no more.Stripped as I am of all the golden fruit
Of self-esteem; and by the cutting blasts
Of self-reproach familiarly assailed;
Yet would I not be of such wintry bareness
But that some leaf of your regard should hang
Upon my naked branches:-lively thoughts
Give birth, full often, to unguarded words;
I grieve that, in your presence, from my tongue
Too much of frailty hath already dropped;
But that too much demands still more.
You know,
Revered Compatriot-and to you, kind Sir,
(Not to be deemed a stranger, as you come
Following the guidance of these welcome feet
To our secluded vale) it may be toldThat my demerits did not sue in -vain
To One on whose mild radiance many gazed
With hope, and all with pleasure. This fair BrideIn the devotedness of youthful love,
Preferring me to parents, and the choir
Of gay companions, to the natal roof,
And all known places and familiar sights
(Resigned with sadness gently weighing down
Her trembling expectations, but no more
Than did to her due honour, and to me
Yielded, that day, a confidence sublime




The Excursoin


47I


In what I had to build upon)-this Bride,
Young, modest, meek, and beautiful, I led
To a low cottage in a sunny bay,
Where the salt sea innocuously breaks,
And the sea breeze as innocently breathes,
On Devon's leafy shores;-a sheltered hold,
In a soft clime encouraging the soil
To a luxuriant bounty!-As our steps
Approach the embowered abode-our chosen seatSee, rooted in the earth, her kindly bed,
The unendangered myrtle, decked with flowers,
Before the threshold stands to welcome us!
While, in the flowering myrtle's neighbourhood,
Not overlooked but courting no regard,
Those native plants, the holly and the yew,
Gave modest intimation to the mind
How willingly their aid they would unite
With the green myrtle, to endear the hours
Of winter, and protect that pleasant place.
-Wild were the walks upon those lonely Downs,
Track leading into track; how marked, how worn
Into bright verdure, between fern and gorse
Winding away its never-ending line
On their smooth surface, evidence was none;
But, there, lay open to our daily haunt,
A range of unappropriated earth,
Where youth's ambitious feet might move at large;
Whence, unmolested wanderers, we beheld
The shining giver of the day diffuse
His brightness o'er a tract of sea and land
Gay as our spirits, free as our desires;
As our enjoyments, boundless.-From those heights
We dropped, at pleasure, into sylvan combs;
Where arbours of impenetrable shade,
And mossy seats, detained us side by side,
With hearts at ease, and knowledge in our hearts
'That all the grove and all the day was ours.'
O happy time! still happier was at hand;
For Nature called my Partner to resign
Her share in the pure freedom of that life,
Enjoyed by us in common.-To my hope,
To my heart's wish, my tender Mate became
The thankful captive of maternal bonds;
And those wild paths were left to me alone.




472


The Excursion


There could I meditate on follies past;
And, like a weary voyager escaped
From risk and hardship, inwardly retrace
A course of vain delights and thoughtless guilt,
And self-indulgence-without shame pursued.
There, undisturbed, could think of and could thank
Her whose submissive spirit was to me
Rule and restraint-my guardian-shall I say
That earthly Providence, whose guiding love
Within a port of rest had lodged me safe;
Safe from temptation, and from danger far?
Strains followed of acknowledgment addressed
To an authority enthroned above
The reach of sight; from whom, as from their source
Proceed all visible ministers of good
That walk the earth-Father of heaven and earth,
Father, and king, and judge, adored and feared!
These acts of mind, and memory, and heart, -
And spirit-interrupted and relieved
By observations transient as the glance
Of flying sunbeams, or to the outward form
Cleaving with power inherent and intense,
As the mute insect fixed upon the plant
On whose soft leaves it hangs, and from whose cup
It draws its nourishment imperceptiblyEndeared my wanderings; and the mother's kiss
And infant's smile awaited my return.
In privacy we dwelt, a wedded pair,
Companions daily, often all day long;
Not placed by fortune within easy reach
Of various intercourse, nor wishing aught
Beyond the allowance of our own fire-side,
The twain within our happy cottage born,
Inmates, and heirs of our united love;
Graced mutually by difference of sex,
And with no wider interval of time
Between their several births than served for one
To establish something of a leader's sway;
Yet left them joined by sympathy in age;
Equals in pleasure, fellows in pursuit.
On these two pillars rested as in air
Our solitude.
It soothes me to perceive,
Your courtesy withholds not from my words




The Excursion                  473
Attentive audience. But, oh! gentle Friends,
As times of quiet and unbroken peace,
Though, for a nation, times of blessedness,
Give back faint echoes from the historian's page;
So, in the imperfect sounds of this discourse,
Depressed I hear, how faithless is the voice
Which those most blissful days reverberate.
What special record can, or need, be given
To rules and habits, whereby much was done,
But all within the sphere of little things;
Of humble, though, to us, important cares,
And precious interests? Smoothly did our life
Advance, swerving not from the path prescribed;
Her annual, her diurnal, round alike
Maintained with faithful care. And you divine
The worst effects that our condition saw
If you imagine changes slowly wrought,
And in their progress unperceivable;
Not wished for; sometimes noticed with a sigh,
(Whate'er of good or lovely they might bring)
Sighs of regret, for the familiar good
And loveliness endeared which they removed.
Seven years of occupation undisturbed
Established seemingly a right to hold
That happiness; and use and habit gave,
To what an alien spirit had acquired,
A patrimonial sanctity. And thus,
With thoughts and wishes bounded to this world,
I lived and breathed; most grateful-if to enjoy
Without repining or desire for more,
For different lot, or change to higher sphere,
(Only except some impulses of pride
With no determined object, though upheld
By theories with suitable support)Most grateful, if in such wise to enjoy
Be proof of gratitude for what we have;
Else, I allow, most thankless.-But, at once,
From some dark seat of fatal power was urged
A claim that shattered all.-Our blooming girl,
Caught in the gripe of death, with such brief time
To struggle in as scarcely would allow
Her cheek to change its colour, was conveyed
From us to inaccessible worlds, to regions
Where height, or depth, admits not the approach




474              The Excursion
Of living man, though longing to pursue.
-With even as brief a warning-and how soon,
With what short interval of time between,
I tremble yet to think of-our last prop,
Our happy life's only remaining stay —
The brother followed; and was seen no more.
Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds
Blow fiercely, agitating earth and sky,
The Mother now remained; as if in her,
Who, to the lowest region of the soul,
Had been. erewhile unsettled and disturbed,
This second visitation had no power
To shake; but only to bind up and seal;
And to establish thankfulness of heart
In Heaven's determinations, ever just.
The eminence whereon her spirit stood,
Mine was unable to attain. Immense
The space that severed us! But, as the sight
Communicates with heaven's ethereal orbs
Incalculably distant; so, I felt
That consolation may descend from far
(And that is intercourse, and union, too,)
While, overcome with speechless gratitude,
And, with a holier love inspired, I looked
On her-at once superior to my woes
And partner of my loss.-O heavy change,
Dimness o'er this clear luminary crept
Insensibly;-the immortal and divine
Yielded to mortal reflux; her pure glory,
As from the pinnacle of worldly state
Wretched ambition drops astounded, fell
Into a gulf obscure of silent grief,
And keen heart-anguish-of itself ashamed,
Yet obstinately cherishing itself:
And, so consumed, she melted from my arms;
And left me, on this earth, disconsolate!
What followed cannot be reviewed in thought;
Much less, retraced in words. If she, of life
Blameless, so intimate with love and joy
And all the tender motions of the soul,
Had been supplanted, could I hope to standInfirm, dependent, and now destitute?
I called on dreams and visions, to disclose
That which is veiled from waking thought; conjured




The Excursion


475


Eternity, as men constrain a ghost
To appear and answer; to the grave I spake
Imploringly;-looked up, and asked the Heavens
If Angels traversed their cerulean floors,
If fixed or wandering star could tidings yield
Of the departed spirit-what abode
It occupies-what consciousness retains
Of former loves and interests. Then my soul
Turned inward,-to examine of what stuff
Time's fetters are composed; and life was put
To inquisition, long and profitless!
By pain of heart-now checked-and now impelledThe intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
And from those transports, and these toils abstruse,
Some trace am I enabled to retain
Of time, else lost;-existing unto me
Only by records in myself not found.
From that abstraction I was roused,-and how?
Even as a thoughtful shepherd by a flash
Of lightning startled in a gloomy cave
Of these wild hills. For, lo! the dread Bastile,
With all the chambers in its horrid towers,
Fell to the ground: —by violence overthrown
Of indignation; and with shouts that drowned
The crash it made in falling! From the wreck
A golden palace rose, or seemed to rise,
The appointed seat of equitable law
And mild paternal sway. The potent shock
I felt: the transformation I perceived,
As marvellously seized as in that moment
When, from the blind mist issuing, I beheld
Glory-beyond all glory ever seen,
Confusion infinite of heaven and earth,
Dazzling the soul. Meanwhile, prophetic harps
In every grove were ringing, 'War shall cease;
'Did ye not hear that conquest is abjured?
'Bring garlands, bring forth choicest flowers, to deck
'The tree of Liberty.'-My heart rebounded;
My melancholy voice the chorus joined;
-' Be joyful all ye nations; in all lands,
'Ye that are capable of joy be glad!
'Henceforth, whate'er is wanting to yourselves
'In others ye shall promptly find; —and all,




476


The Excursion


'Enriched by mutual and reflected wealth,
'Shall with one heart honour their common kind.'
Thus was I reconverted to the world;
Society became my glittering bride,
And airy hopes my children.-From the depths
Of natural passion, seemingly escaped,
My soul diffused herself in wide embrace
Of institutions, and the forms of things;
As they exist, in mutable array,
Upon life's surface. What, though in my veins
There flowed no Gallic blood, nor had I breathed
The air of France, not less than Gallic zeal
Kindled and burnt among the sapless twigs
Of my exhausted heart. If busy men
In sober conclave met, to weave a web
Of amity, whose living threads should stretch
Beyond the seas, and to the farthest pole,
There did I sit, assisting. If, with noise
And acclamation, crowds in open air
Expressed the tumult of their minds, my voice
There mingled, heard or not. The powers of song
I left not uninvoked; and, in still groves,
Where mild enthusiasts tuned a pensive lay
Of thanks and expectation, in accord
With their belief, I sang Saturnian rule
Returned,-a progeny of golden years
Permitted to descend, and bless mankind.
-With promises the Hebrew Scriptures teem:
I felt their invitation; and resumed
A long-suspended office in the House
Of public worship, where, the glowing phrase
Of ancient inspiration serving me,
I promised also,-with undaunted trust
Foretold, and added prayer to prophecy;
The admiration winning of the crowd;
The help desiring of the pure devout.
Scorn and contempt forbid me to proceed!
But History, time's slavish scribe, will tell
How rapidly the zealots of the cause
Disbanded-or in hostile ranks appeared;
Some, tired of honest service; these, outdone,
Disgusted therefore, or appalled, by aims
Of fiercer zealots-so confusion reigned,




The Excursion                  477
And the more faithful were compelled to exclaim,
As Brutus did to Virtue, 'Liberty,
'I worshipped thee, and find thee but a Shade!'
Such recantation had for me no charm,
Nor would I bend to it; who should have grieved
At aught, however fair, that bore the mien
Of a conclusion, or catastrophe.
Why then conceal, that, when the simply good
In timid selfishness withdrew, I sought
Other support, not scrupulous whence it came;
And, by what compromise it stood, not nice?Enough if notions seemed to be high-pitched,
And qualities determined.-Among men
So charactered did I maintain a strife
Hopeless, and still more hopeless every hour;
But, in the process, I began to feel
That, if the emancipation of the world
Were missed, I should at least secure my own,
And be in part compensated. For rights,
Widely-inveterately usurped upon,
I spake with vehemence; and promptly seized
All that Abstraction furnished for my needs
Or purposes; nor scrupled to proclaim,
And propagate, by liberty of life,
Those new persuasions. Not that I rejoiced,
Or even found pleasure, in such vagrant course,
For its own sake; but farthest from the walk
Which I had trod in happiness and peace,
Was most inviting to a troubled mind;
That, in a struggling and distempered world,
Saw a seductive image of herself.
Yet, mark the contradictions of which Man
Is still the sport! Here Nature was my guide,
The Nature of the dissolute; but thee,
O fostering Nature! I rejected-smiled
At others' tears in pity; and in scorn
At those, which thy soft influence sometimes drew
From my unguarded heart.-The tranquil shores
Of Britain circumscribed me; else, perhaps
I might have been entangled among deeds,
Which, now, as infamous, I should abhorDespise, as senseless: for my spirit relished
Strangely the exasperation of that Land,
Which turned an angry beak against the down




478             The Excursion
Of her own breast; confounded into hope
Of disencumbering thus her fretful wings.
But all was quieted by iron bonds
Of military sway. The shifting aims,
The moral interests, the creative might,
The varied functions and high attributes
Of civil action, yielded to a power
Formal, and odious, and contemptible.-In Britain, ruled a panic dread of change;
The weak were praised, rewarded, and advanced;
And, from; the impulse of a just disdain,
Once more did I retire into myself.
There feeling no contentment, I resolved
To fly, for safeguard, to some foreign shore,
Remote from Europe; from her blasted hopes
Ier fields of carnage, and polluted air.
Fresh blew the wind, when o'er the Atlantic Main
The ship went gliding with her thoughtless crew;
And who among them but an Exile, freed
From discontent, indifferent, pleased to sit
Among the busily-employed, not more
With obligation charged, with service taxed,
Than the loose pendant-to the idle wind
Upon the tall mast streaming. But, ye Powers
Of soul and sense mysteriously allied,
Oh, never let the Wretched, if a choice
Be left him, trust the freight of his distress
To a long voyage on the silent deep!
For, like a plague, will memory break out;
And, in the blank and solitude of things,
Upon his spirit, with a fever's strength,
Will conscience prey.-Feebly must they have felt
Who, in old time, attired with snakes and whipsThe vengeful Furies. Beautifzd regards
Were turned on me-the face of her I loved;
The Wife and Mother pitifully fixing
Tender reproaches, insupportable!
Where now that boasted liberty? No welcome
From unknown objects I received; and those,
Known and familiar, which the vaulted sky
Did, in the placid clearness of the night,
Disclose, had accusations; to prefer
Against my peace. Within the cabin stood




The Excursion                  479
That volume-as a compass for the soulRevered among the nations. I implored
Its guidance; but the infallible support
Of faith was wanting. Tell me, why refused
To One by storms annoyed and adverse winds;
Perplexed with currents; of his weakness sick;
Of vain endeavours tired; and by his own,
And by his nature's, ignorance, dismayed!
Long-wished-for sight, the Western World appeared;
And, when the ship was moored, I leaped ashore
Indignantly-resolved to be a man,
Who, having o'er the past no power, would live
No longer in subjection to the past,
With abject mind-from a tyrannic lord
Inviting penance, fruitlessly endured:
So, like a fugitive, whose feet have cleared
Some boundary, which his followers may not cross
In prosecution of their deadly chase,
Respiring I looked round.-How bright the sun,
The breeze how soft! Can anything produced
In the old World compare, thought I, for power
And majesty with this gigantic stream,
Sprung from the desert? And behold a city
Fresh, youthful, and aspiring! What are these
To me, or I to them? As much at least
As he desires that they should be, whom winds
And waves have wafted to this distant shore,
In the condition of a damaged seed,
Whose fibres cannot, if they would, take root.
Here may I roam at large;-my business is,
Roaming at large, to observe, and not to feel,
And, therefore, not to act-convinced that all
Which bears the name of action, howsoe'er
Beginning, ends in servitude-still painful,
And mostly profitless. And, sooth to say,
On nearer view, a motley spectacle
Appeared, of high pretensions,-unreproved
But by the obstreperous voice of higher still;
Big passions strutting on a petty stage;
Which a detached spectator may regard
Not unamused.-But ridicule demands
Quick change of objects; and, to laugh alone,
At a composing distance from the haunts
Of strife and folly, though it be a treat




480


The Excursion


As choice as musing Leisure can bestow;
Yet, in the very centre of the crowd,
To keep the secret of a poignant scorn,
Howe'er to airy Demons suitable,
Of all unsocial courses, is least fit
For the gross spirit of mankind,-the one
That soonest fails to please, and quickliest turns
Into vexation.
Let us, then, I said,
Leave this unknit Republic to the scourge
Of her own passions; and to regions haste,
Whose shades have never felt the encroaching axe,
Or soil endured a transfer in the mart
Of dire rapacity. There, Man abides,
Primeval Nature's child. A creature weak
In combination, (wherefore else driven back
So far, and of his old inheritance
So easily deprived?) but, for that cause,
More dignified, and stronger in himself;
Whether to act, judge, suffer, or enjoy.
True, the intelligence of social art
Hath overpowered his forefathers, and soon
Will sweep the remnant of his line away;
But contemplations, worthier, nobler far
Than her destructive energies, attend
His independence, when along the side
Of Mississippi, or that northern stream
That spreads into successive seas, he walks;
Pleased to perceive his own unshackled life,
And his innate capacities of soul,
There imaged: or when, having gained the top
Of some commanding eminence, which yet
Intruder ne'er beheld, he thence surveys
Regions of wood and wide savannah, vast
Expanse of unappropriated earth,
With mind that sheds a light on what he sees;
Free as the sun, and lonely as the sun,
Pouring above his head its radiance down
Upon a living and rejoicing world!
So, westward, tow'rd the unviolated woods
I bent my way; and, roaming far and wide,
Failed not to greet the merry Mocking-bird;
And, while the melancholy Muccawiss
(The sportive bird's companion in the grove)




The Excursion                  481
Repeated, o'er and o'er, his plaintive cry,
I sympathised at leisure with the sound;
But that pure archetype of human greatness,
I found him not. There, in his stead, appeared
A creature, squalid, vengeful, and impure;
Remorseless, and submissive to no law
But superstitious fear, and abject sloth.
Enough is told! Here am I-ye have heard
What evidence I seek, and vainly seek;
What from my fellow-beings I require,
And either they have not to give, or I
Lack virtue to receive; what I myself,
Too oft by wilful forfeiture, have lost
Nor can regain. How languidly I look
Upon this visible fabric of the world,
May be divined-perhaps it hath been said:But spare your pity, if there be in me
Aught that deserves respect: for I exist,
Within myself, not comfortless.-The tenor
Which my life holds, he readily may conceive
Whoe'er hath stood to watch a mountain brook
In some still passage of its course, and seen,
Within the depths of its capacious breast,
Inverted trees, rocks, clouds, and azure sky;
And, on its glassy surface, specks of foam,
And conglobated bubbles undissolved,
Numerous as stars; that, by their onward lapse,
Betray to sight the motion of the stream,
Else imperceptible. - Meanwhile, is heard
A softened roar, or murmur; and the sound
Though soothing, and the little floating isles
Though beautiful, are both by Nature charged
With the same pensive office; and make known
Through what perplexing labyrinths, abrupt
Precipitations, and untoward straits,
The earth-born wanderer hath passed; and quickly,
That respite o'er, like traverses and toils
Must he again encounter.-Such a stream
Is human Life; and so the Spirit fares
In the best quiet to her course allowed;
And such is mine,-save only for a hope
That my particular current soon will reach
The unfathomable gulf, where all is still 1"


R




482


The Excursion


BOOK FOURTH
DESPONDENCY CORRECTED
-.. AR.GUMENT
State of feeling produced by the foregoing Narrative-A belief in a
superintending Providence the only adequate support under afflictionWanderer's ejaculation-Acknowledges the difficulty of a lively faithHence immoderate sorrow-Exhortations-How received-Wanderer
applies his discourse to that other cause of dejection in' the — Solitary's
mind-Disappointment from thle French iRevolution-States grounds
of hope, and insists o  the necessity of patience and. ortitude with
respect to the course of great revolutions-Knowledge kthe source of
tranquillity-Rural Solitude favourable to knowledge of the inferior
Creatures; Study of their habits and ways recommended; exhortation
to bodily exertion and communion with Nature-Morbid Solitude
pitiable-Superstition.better than apathy-Apathy and destitution
unknown in the infancy of society-The various modes of Religion
prevented it-Illustrated in the Jewish, Persian, Babylonian, Chaldean,
and Grecian modes of belief-SSolit'arvinterposes —Wanderer points out
the influence of religious and imaginativ.e-feeling in the thutmble ranks
of society, illustrated from present and. past-times —These principles
tend to recall exploded superstitions and popery-Wanderer rebuts this
charge, and contrasts the dignities of the Imagination with the
presumptuous littleness:of certain modern' Philosophers-Recommiends
other lights and guides-Asserts the power of the soul to regenerate
herself; Solitary asks how-Reply-Personal appeal-Exhortation to
activity of body renewed-How to commune with Nature-Wanderer
concludes with a legitimate union of the imagination, affections, understanding, and reason-Effect of his discourse-Evening; Retitrn to the
Cottage..
HERE closed the Tenant of that lonely vale
His mournful nartative-commenced in pain,
In pain commenced, and ended without peace:
Yet tempered, not unfrequently, with strains
Of native feeling, grateful to our minds i
And yielding surely some relief to his
While we sate listening with compassion due.
A pause of silence followed; then, with voice
That did not falter though the heart was moved,
The Wanderer said:"One adequate. support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists-one only; an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
~,,




The Excursion                  483
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.
-The darts of anguish fix not where the seat.Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified
By acquiescence in the.Will. supreme
For time and for eternity; by faith,
Faith absolute in God, including hope,
And the defence that lies in boundless love
Of his perfections; with habitual dread
Of aught unworthily conceived, endured
Impatiently, illdone, or left undone,
To the dishonour of his. holy name.
Soul of our Souls, and safeguard of the, world!
Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart;
Restore their languid. spirits, and. recall
Their lost affections unto thee and thine!"
Then, as we issued from that covert nook,
He thus continued, lifting up his eyes
To heaven:-" How beautiful this dome;of sky;
And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed
At thy command, how awful!.Shall the Soul,
Human and rational, report of thee
Even less than these?-Be mute who will, who-can,
Yet. I will praise thee with impassioned voice:
My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget thee here; where thou hast built,
For thy own glory, in the wilderness!
Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine,
In such a temple as we now behold
Reared for thy presence: therefore, am I bound
To worship,'here, and everywhere-as one
Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread,
From childhood up, the ways of poverty;
From unreflecting ignorance preserved,
And from debasement rescued. —By thy grace
The particle divine remained unquenched;
And, 'mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil,
Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers,
From paradise transplanted: wintry age
Impends; the frost will gather round my heart;
If the flowers wither, I am worse than dead!
-Come, labour, when the wornfout frame requires
Perpetual sabbath; come,-disease andwant;
And sad exclusion through decay of:sense;




484             The Excursion
But leave me unabated trust in theeAnd let thy favour, to the end of life,
Inspire me with ability to seek
Repose and hope among eternal thingsFather of heaven and earth! and I am rich,
And will possess my portion in content!
And what are things eternal?-powers depart,"
The grey-haired Wanderer stedfastly replied,
Answering the question which himself had asked,
"Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passions hold a fluctuating seat:
But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
Duty exists;-immutably survive,
For our support, the measures and the forms,
Which an abstract intelligence supplies;
Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not.
Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart,
Do, with united urgency, require,
What more that may not perish?-Thou, dread source,
Prime, self-existing cause and end of all
That in the scale of being fill their place;
Above our human region, or below,
Set and sustained;-thou, who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that thyself,
Therein, with our simplicity awhile
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restor'st us, daily, to the powers of sense
And reason's stedfast rule-thou, thou alone
Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits,
Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration thou endur'st; endure
For consciousness the motions of thy will;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
(Submission constituting strength and power)
Even to thy Being's infinite majesty!
This universe shall pass away-a work
Glorious! because the shadow of thy might,
A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.
Ah   if the time must come, in which my feet




The Excursion                  485
No, more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
Loved haunts like these; the unimprisoned Mind
May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still, it may be allowed me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul
In youth were mine; when, stationed on the top
Of some huge hill-expectant, I beheld
The sun rise up, from distant climes returned
Darkness to chase, and sleep; and bring the day
His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep
Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended; then, my spirit was entranced
With joy exalted to beatitude;
The measure of my soul was filled with bliss,
And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,
With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!
Those fervent raptures are for ever flown;
And, since their date, my soul hath undergone
Change manifold, for better or for worse:
Yet cease I not to struggle, and aspire
Heavenward; and chide the part of me that flags,
Through sinful choice; or dread necessity
On human nature from above imposed.
'Tis, by comparison, an easy task
Earth to despise; but, to converse with heavenThis is not easy:-to relinquish all
We have, or hope, of happiness and joy,
And stand in freedom loosened from this world,
I deem not arduous; but must needs confess
That 'tis a thing impossible to frame
Conceptions equal to the soul's desires;
And the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
-Man is of dust: ethereal hopes are his,
Which, when they shotild sustain themselves aloft,
Want due consistence; like a pillar of smoke,
That with majestic energy from earth
Rises; but, having reached the thinner air,
Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen.
From this infirmity of mortal kind.Sorrow proceeds, which else were not; at least,




486              The Excursion
If grief be something hallowed and ordaidXed,
If, in pirportion, it be just and meet,
Yet, through this weakness of the general;heart,
Is it enabled to- maintain its hold
In that excess which conscience disapproves.
For who could sink and settle to that point
Of selfishness; so senseless who could be
As long and perseveringly to mourn
For any object of his love, removed
From this unstable- world, if he-could fix  -
A satisfying view upon that state
Of pure, imperishable, blessedness,
Which reason' promsises; and holy writ
Ensures to all believers?- Yet mistrust
Is of such incapacity, methinks,
No natural branch; despondency far less;
And, least of all, is absolute despair.
-And, if there be whose'tender frames 'have drooped
Even to the dustr; apparently, through weightt
Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power
An agonizing sorrow to transmute;
Deem not' that proof is here of hope withheld
When wanted niost;' a confidence impaired
So pitiably, that, having ceased' to see
Withb6dily eyes, they are-borne down by love
Of what is lost, and perish through regret.
Oh! no, the innocent Sufferer often sees
Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs
To realize' the3 Vision, vwith intense
And over-constant yearhning;-there-there lies
The excess, by which the-balance is destroyed.
Too, tood contracted are these walls of flesh,
This vital'iarfmth too cold, these visual orbs,
Though inconceivably eido-Wed, too dim
For any passion'of the soti that leads
To ecstasy; and, all" the crooked paths:
Of time andi change disdaining, takes its cotirse
Along the line of limitless desires.
I, speaking now'from such' disorder free,
Nor rapt, not craVingi but in settled peace,
I cannot doubt that they whom you deplore
Are glorified,; or, if they sleep,; hall wake
From sleep, arid' dWell with God in endless love.;
Hope, below this, consists riot with belief
In mercy,- caried iifiriite degrees




The Excursion                   487
Beyond the tenderness of human hearts:
Hope, below this, consists anot with belief
In perfect wisdom, guiding mightiest power,
That finds no, limits but her own. pure will.
Here then we rest; not fearing for our creed
The worst that human reasoning can achieve,..:To unsettle or perplex it.: yet with pain
Acknowledging, and grievous self-reproach,
That, though immovably convinced, we want
Zeal, and the virtue to exist by faith
As soldiers live by courage; as,; by strength
Of heart, the sailor fights with roaring seas.;.
Alas! the endowment of immortal power
Is matched unequally with -custom, time,
And domineering faculties of sense
In all; in most, with superadded foes,
Idle temptations; open vanities,
Ephemeral offspring of the unblushing world;
And, in the private regions of the mind,
Ill-governed passions, ranklings; of despite,
Immoderate wishes, pining discontent,
Distress and care. What then remains?-To seek
Those helps for his occasions ever near
Who lacks not will to use them; vows, renewed
On the first motion of a holy thought;
Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer-.
A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart
Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows
Without access of unexpected strength,
But, above all, the victory is most sure
For him, who, seeking faith by virtue, strives
To yield entire submission to. the law
Of conscience-conscience reverenced and obeyed,
As God's most intimate presence in the soulj
And his most perfect image in the world.
-Endeavour thus to live; these rules regard;
These helps solicit; and a stedfast seat
Shall then be yours among the happy few
Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air,
Sons of the morning. / For your nobler part,
Ere disencumbered of her mortal chains,
Doubt shall be quelledl and trouble chased away;
With only such degree of sadness left
As may support longings of pure desire;




488              The Excursion
And strengthen love, rejoicing secretly
In the sublime attractions of the grave."
While, in this strain, the venerable Sage
Poured forth his aspirations, and announced
His judgments, near that lonely house we paced
A plot of greensward, seemingly preserved
By nature's care from wreck of scattered stones,
And from encroachment of encircling heath:
Small space!- but, for reiterated steps,
Smooth and commodious; as a stately deck
Which to and fro the mariner is used
To tread for pastime, talking with his mates,
Or haply thinking of far-distant friends,
While the ship glides before a steady breeze.
Stillness prevailed around us: and the voice
That spake was capable to lift the soul
Toward regions yet more tranquil. But, methought,
That he, whose fixed despondency had given
Impulse and motive to that strong discourse,
Was less upraised in spirit than abashed;
Shrinking from admonition, like a man
Who feels that to exhort is to reproach.
Yet not to be diverted from his aim,
The Sage continued:"For that other loss,
The loss of confidence in social man,
By the unexpected transports of our age
Carried so high, that every thought, which looked
Beyond the temporal destiny of the Kind,
To many seemed superfluous-as, no cause
Could e'er for such exalted confidence
Exist; so, none is now for fixed despair:
The two extremes are equally disowned
By reason: if, with sharp recoil, from one
You have been driven far as its opposite,
Between them seek the point whereon to build
Sound expectations. So doth he advise
Who shared at first the illusion; but was soon
Cast from:the pedestal of pride by shocks
Which Nature gently gave, in woods and fields;
Nor unreproved by Providence, thus speaking
To the inattentive children of the world:
'Vainglorious Generation! what new powers
'On you have been conferred? what gifts, withheld




The Excursion                  489
'From your progenitors, have ye received,
'Fit recompense of new desert? what claim
'Are ye prepared to urge, that my decrees
'For you should undergo a sudden change;
'And the weak functions of one busy day,
'Reclaiming and extirpating, perform
'What all the slowly-moving years of time,
'With their united force, have left undone?
'By nature's gradual processes be taught;
'By story be confounded! Ye aspire
'Rashly, to fall once more; and that false fruit,
'Which, to your overweening spirits, yields
'Hope of a flight celestial, will produce
'Misery and shame. But Wisdom of her sons
'Shall not the less, though late, be justified.'
Such timely warning," said the. Wanderer, "gave
That visionary voice; and, at this day,
When a Tartarean darkness overspreads
The groaning nations; when the impious rule,
By will or by established ordinance,
Their own dire agents, and constrain the good
To acts which they abhor; though I bewail
This triumph, yet the pity of my heart
Prevents me not from owning, that the law,
By which mankind now suffers, is most just.
For by superior energies; more strict
Affiance in each other; faith more firm
In their unhallowed principles; the bad
Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent good.
Therefore, not unconsoled, I wait-in hope
To see the moment, when the righteous cause
Shall gain defenders zealous and devout
As they who have opposed her; in which Virtue
Will, to her efforts, tolerate no bounds
That are not lofty as her rights; aspiring
By impulse of her own ethereal zeal.
That spirit only can redeem mankind;
And when that sacred spirit shall appear,
Then shall our triumph be complete as theirs.
Yet, should this confidence prove vain, the wise
Have still the keeping of their proper peace;
Are guardians of their own tranquillity.
They act, or they recede, observe, and feel;
R2




490


The Excursion


'Knowing the heart of man is set to be
The centre of this world, about the which
Those revolutions of disturbances
Still roll; where all the aspects of misery
Predominate; whose strong effects are such
As he must bear, being powerless to redress
And that unaless above himself he can
Erect himself, howv poor a thing is Man I'
Happy is he who lives to understand,
Not human nature only, but explores
All natures,-to the end that he may find
The law that governs each; and where begins
The union, the partition where, that makes
Kind and degree, among all visible Beings;
The constitutions, powers, and faculties,
Which they inherit,-cannot step beyond, ---
And cannot fall beneath; that do assign
To every class its station and its office,
Through all the mighty commonwealth of'things
Up from the creeping plant to sovereign Man,
Such converse, if directed by a meek,
Sincere, and humble spirit, teaches love:
For knowledge is delight; and such delight
Breeds love: yet, suited as it rather is
To thought and to the climbing intellect,
It teaches less to love, than to adore;
If that be not indeed the highest love!"
"Yet," said I, tempted here to interpose,
"The dignity of life is not impaired
By aught that innocently satisfies
The humbler cravings of the heart; and he
Is a still happier man, who, for those heights
Of speculation not unfit, descends;
And such benign affections cultivates
Among the inferior kinds; not merely those
That he may call his own, and which depend,
As individual objects of regard,
Upon his care, from whom he also looks
For signs and tokens of a mutual bond;
But others, far beyond this narrow sphere,
Whom, for the very sake of love, he loves,:
Nor is it a mean praise of rural life
1 Daniel.




The Excursion


49'1


And solitude, that they do favour most,
Most frequently call forth, and best sustain,
These pure sensations; that can penetrate
The obstreperous city; on the barren seas
Are not unfelt; and much might recommend,
How much they might inspirit and endear,
The loneliness of this sublime retreat!?1
"Yes,", said the Sage, resuming the discourse
Again directed to his downcast Friend,
"If, with the froward will and grovelling soul
Of man, offended, liberty is here,
And invitation every hour renewed,
To mark their placid state, who never heard
Of a command which they have power to break,
Or rule which they are tempted to transgress:
These, with a soothed or elevated heart,
May we behold; their knowledge register;
Observe their ways; and, free from envy, find
Complacence there::-but wherefore this to you?
I guess that, welcome to your lonely hearth,
The redbreast, ruffled up by winter's cold:
Into a 'feathery bunch,' feeds at your hand:
A box, perchance, is from your casement hung
For the small wren to build in; —not in vain,
The barriers disregarding that surround
This deep abiding place, before your sight
Mounts on the breeze the butterfly; and soars,:
Small creature as she is, from earth's bright flowers,
Into the dewy clouds.. Ambition reigns
In the waste wilderness: the Soul ascends
Drawn towards her native firmament of heaven,
When the fresh eagle, in the month of May,
Upborne, at evening, on replenished wing,
This shaded valley leaves; and leaves the- dark
Empurpled hills, conspicuously renewingA proud communication with the sun
Low sunk beneath the horizon I-List!-I heard,
From yon huge breast of rock, a voice sent forth
As if the visible mountain made the cry.
Again!'"-The effect upon the soul was such
As he expressed: from out the mountain's heart
The solemn voice appeared to issue, startling
The blank air -for the region all around
Stood empty of all shape of life, and silent




492


The Excursion


Save for that single cry, the unanswered bleat
Of a poor lamb-left somewhere to itself,
The plaintive spirit of the solitude!
He paused, as if unwilling to proceed,
Through consciousness that silence in such place
Was best, the most affecting eloquence.
But soon his thoughts returned upon themselves,
And, in soft tone of speech, thus he resumed.
"Ah! if the heart, too confidently raised,
Perchance too lightly occupied, or lulled
Too easily, despise or overlook
The vassalage that binds her to the earth,
Her sad dependence upon time, and all
The trepidations of mortality,
What place so destitute and void-but there
The little flower her vanity shall check;
The trailing worm reprove her thoughtless pride?
These craggy regions, these chaotic wilds,
Does that benignity pervade, that warms
The mole contented with her darksome walk
In the cold ground; and to the emmet gives
Her foresight, and intelligence that makes
The tiny creatures strong by social league;
Supports the generations, multiplies
Their tribes, till we behold a spacious plain
Or grassy bottom, all, with little hillsTheir labour, covered, as a lake with waves;
Thousands of cities, in the desert place
Built up of life, and food, and means of life!
Nor wanting here, to entertain the thought,
Creatures that in communities exist,
Less, as might seem, for general guardianship
Or through dependence upon mutual aid,
Than by participation of delight
And a strict love of fellowship, combined.
What other spirit can it be that prompts
The gilded summer flies to mix and weave
Their sports together in the solar beam,
Or in the gloom of twilight hum their joy?
More obviously the self-same influence rules
The feathered kinds; the fieldfare's pensive flock,
The cawing rooks, and sea-mews from afar,
Hovering above these inland solitudes,
By the rough wind unscattered, at whose call




The Excursion                 493
Up through the trenches of the long-drawn vales
Their voyage was begun: nor is its power
Unfelt among the sedentary fowl
That seek yon pool, and there prolong their stay
In silent congress; or together roused
Take flight; while with their clang the air resounds:
And, over all, in that ethereal vault,
Is the mute company of changeful clouds;
Bright apparition, suddenly put forth,
The rainbow smiling on the faded storm;
The mild assemblage of the starry heavens;
And the great sun, earth's universal lord!
How bountiful is Nature! he shall find
Who seeks not; and to him, who hath not asked,
Large measure shall be dealt. Three sabbath-days
Are scarcely told, since, on a service bent
Of mere humanity, you clomb those heights;
And what a marvellous and heavenly show
Was suddenly revealed t-the swains moved on,
And heeded not: you lingered, you perceived
And felt, deeply as living man could feel.
There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
And inward self-disparagement affords
To meditative spleen a grateful feast.
Trust me, pronouncing on your own desert,
You judge unthankfully: distempered nerves
Infect the thoughts: the languor of the frame
Depresses the soul's vigour. Quit your couchCleave not so fondly to your moody cell;
Nor let the hallowed powers, that shed from heaven
Stillness and rest, with disapproving eye
Look down upon your taper, through a watch
Of midnight hours, unseasonably twinkling
In this deep Hollow, like a sullen star
Dimly reflected in a lonely pool.
Take courage, and withdraw yourself from ways
That run not parallel to nature's course.
Rise with the lark! your matins shall obtain
Grace, be their composition what it may,
If but with hers performed; climb once again,
Climb every day, those ramparts; meet the breeze
Upon their tops, adventurous as a bee
That from your garden thither soars, to feed
On new-blown heath; let yon commanding rock




494              The   Excursion
Be your frequented watch-tower; roll the stotie
In thunder down the mountains; with all your might
Chase the wild goat; and- if the bold red deer
Fly to those harbouts, driven by hound and horn
Loud echoing, add your speed to the pursuit
So, wearied -to your hut Shall you return,
And sink at evening into sound repose."
The Solitary lifted toward the hills
A kindling eye:-accordant feelings rushed
Into my bosom, whence these words broke forth:
" Oh  what a joy it were in vigorous health,
To have a body (this our vital frame
With shrinking sensibility endued,
And all the nice regards of flesh and blood). i
And to the elements surrender it
As if it were a spirit!-How divine,
The liberty, for frail, for mortal, man
To roam at large among unpeopled glens
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps; regions consecrate
To oldest time and, reckless.of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet.in her nest,
Be as a presence or a motion-one
Among the many there; and while the mists
Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes
And phantoms from the crags and solid earth
As fast as a musician scatters sounds..
Out of an instrument; and while the streams
(As at a first creation and in haste
To exercise their untried faculties)
Descending from the region of the clouds,
And starting from the hollows of the earth
More multitudinous every moment, rend
Their way before them-what a joy- to roam
An equal among mightiest energies;
And haply sometimes.with articulate voice,
Amid the deafening tumult, scarcely' heard
By him that utters it, exclaim aloud,
'Rage on, ye elements! let moon and stars
Their aspects lend, and mingle in their turn
With this commotion (ruino  ous tough it be)
Prom day to night, from night to day, prolonged i "
"Yes," said the Wanderer, taking from my lips
The strain of transport, '"whosoe'er in youth




The Excursion


495


Has, through ambition of his soul, given.way
To such desires, and grasped at such delight,
Shall feel congenial stirrings late and long,
In spite of all the weakness that life brings,
Its cares and sorrows; he, though taught to own
The tranquillising power of time, shall wake,
Wake sometimes to a noble restlessnessLoving the sports which once he gloried in.
Compatriot, Friend, remote are Garry's hills,
The streams far distant of your native glen;
Yet is their form and image here expressed
With brotherly resemblance. Turn your steps
Wherever fancy leads; by day, by night,
Are various engines working, not the same
As those with which your soul in youth was moved,
But by the great Artificer endowed
With no inferior power. You dwell alone;
You walk, you live, you speculate alone;
Yet doth remembrance, like a sovereign prince,
For you a stately gallery maintain
Of gay or tragic pictures. You have seen,
Have acted, suffered, travelled far, observed
With no incurious eye; and books are yours,
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies
Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs.
These hoards of truth you can unlock at will:
And music waits upon your skilful touch,
Sounds which the wandering shepherd from these heights
Hears, and forgets his purpose; furnished thus,
How can you droop, if willing to be upraised?
A piteous lot it were to flee from ManYet not rejoice in Nature. He, whose hours
Are by domestic pleasures uncaressed
And unenlivened; who exists whole years
Apart from benefits received or done
'Mid the transactions of the bustling crowd;
Who neither hears, nor feels a wish to hear,
Of the world's interests-such a one hath need
Of a quick fancy, and an active heart,
That, for the day's consumption, books may yield




496


The Excursion


Food not unwholesome; earth and air correct
His morbid humour, with delight supplied
Or solace, varying as the seasons change.
-Truth has her pleasure-grounds, her haunts of ease
And easy contemplation; gay parterres,
And labyrinthine walks, her sunny glades
And shady groves in studied contrast-each,
For recreation, leading into each:
These may he range, if willing to partake
Their soft indulgences, and in due time
May issue thence, recruited for the tasksAnd course of service Truth requires from those
Who tend her altars, wait upon her throne,
And guard her fortresses. Who thinks, and feels,
And recognises ever and anon
The breeze of nature stirring in his soul,
Why need such man go desperately astray,,And nurse 'the dreadful appetite of death'?
If tired with systems, each in its degree
Substantial, and all crumbling in their turn,
Let him build systems of his own, and smile
At the fond work, demolished with a touch;
If unreligious, let him be at once,
Among ten thousand innocents, enrolled
A pupil in the many-chambered school,
Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.
Life's autumn past, I stand on winter's verge;
And daily lose what I desire to keep:
Yet rather would I instantly decline
To the traditionary sympathies
Of a most rustic ignorance, and take
A fearful apprehension from the owl
Or death-watch: and as readily rejoice,
If two auspicious magpies crossed my way;To this would rather bend than see and hear
The repetitions wearisome of sense,
Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place;
Where knowledge, ill begun in cold remark
On outward things,: with formal inference ends;
Or, if the mind turn inward, she recoils
At once-or, not recoiling, is perplexedLost in a gloom of uninspired research;
Meanwhile, the heart within the heart, the seat
Where peace and happy consciousness should dwell,




The Excursion                 497
On its own axis restlessly revolving,
Seeks, yet can nowhere find, the light of truth.
Upon the breast of new-created earth
Man walked; and when and wheresoe'er he moved,
Alone or mated, solitude was not.
He heard, borne on the wind, the articulate voice
Of God; and Angels to his sight appeared
Crowning the glorious hills of paradise;
Or through the groves gliding like morning mist
Enkindled by the sun. He sate-and talked
With winged Messengers; who daily brought
To his small island in the ethereal deep
Tidings of joy and love.-From those pure heights
(Whether of actual vision, sensible
To sight and feeling, or that in this sort
Have condescendingly been shadowed forth
Communications spiritually maintained,
And intuitions moral and divine)
Fell Human-kind-to banishment condemned
That flowing years repealed not: and distress
And grief spread wide; but Man escaped the doom
Of destitution;-solitude was not.
-Jehovah-shapeless Power above all Powers,
Single and one, the omnipresent God,
By vocal utterance, or blaze of light,
Or cloud of darkness, localised in heaven;
On earth, enshrined within the wandering ark;
Or, out of Sion, thundering from his throne
Between the Cherubim-on the chosen Race
Showered miracles, and ceased not to dispense
Judgments, that filled the land from age to age
With hope, and love, and gratitude, and fear;
And with amazement smote;-thereby to assert
His scorned, or unacknowledged, sovereignty.
And when the One, ineffable of name,
Of nature indivisible, withdrew
From mortal adoration or regard,
Not then was Deity engulphed; nor Man,
The rational creature, left, to feel the weight
Of his own reason, without sense or thought
Of higher reason and a.purer will,
To benefit and bless, through mightier power:Whether the Persian-zealous to reject
Altar and image, and the inclusive walls




498              The Excursion
And roofs of temples built by human hands -...
To loftiest heights ascending, from their,tops,-..
With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow,
Presented.sacrifice to moon and stars,;
And to the winds and.mother elements,
And the whole circle of.the heavens, for him
A sensitive existence, and a God,
With lifted hands invoked, and songs of praise:
Or, less reluctantly to bonds of sense
Yielding his soul, the Babylonian framed
For influence undefined: a personal shape;..
And,.from the plain, with toil immense, uprearedTower eight times planted on the top of tower,
That Belus, nightly to his splendid couch
Descending, there might rest_; upon that height
Pure and serene, diffused-to overlookWinding Euphrates, and the city vast
Of his devoted worshippers, far-stretched,
With grove and field and garden interspersed;;
Their.town, and foodful.region for support:.
Against the pressure of:beleaguering war. -
'Chaldean shepherds, ranging trackless fields,
Beneath the concave of unclouded skies
Spread like a sea, in'boundless solitude,
Looked on the polar star, as on a guide
And guardian of their course, that never closed
His stedfast eye. The planetary Five
With a submissive reverence they beheld;
Watched, from the centre of their sleeping flocks,
Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move
Carrying through ether, in perpetual round,
Decrees and resolutions of the Gods-;
And, by their aspects, signifying works
Of dim futurity, to Man revealed.
-The imaginative faculty was lord
Of observations natural; and, thus.:
Led on, those shepherds made report of stars
In set rotation passing to and fro,
Between the orbs of 'our apparent sphere
And its invisible counterpart, adorned
With answering constellations, under earth,
Removed from all approach of living sight
But present to the dead; who, so they deemed,
Like those celestial messengers beheld
All accidents, and judges were of all.




The Excursion                  499
The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,
Rivers and fertile plains, and sounding shores, —
Under a cope of sky more variable,
Could find commodious place for every God,
Promptly received, as prodigally brought,
From the surrounding countries, at the choice
Of all adventurers. With unrivalled skill,
As nicest observation furnished hints
For studious fancy, his quick hand bestowed
On fluent operations a fixed shape;
Metal or stone, idolatrously served.
And yet-triumphant o'er this pompous show
Of art, this palpable array of sense,
On every side encountered; in despite
Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets
By wandering Rhapsodists; and in contempt
Of doubt and bold denial hourly urged
Amid the wrangling schools-a SPIRIT hung,
Beautiful region! o'er thy towns and farms,
Statues and temples, and memorial tombsi! I
And emanations were perceived; and-acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course,
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds, on grave philosopher imposed
And armed warrior; and in every grove
A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed,
When piety more awful had relaxed.
-' Take, running river, take these locks of mine -
Thus would the Votary say —' this severed hair,
'My vow fulfilling, do: I here present,
'Thankful for my beloved child's return.
'Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,
'Thy murmurs heard; and drunk the crystal lymph
'With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
'And, all day long, moisten these flowery fields!'
And doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed
Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
Of Life continuous, Being unimpaired;
That hath been, is, and where it was and is
There shall endure,-existence unexposed
To the blind walk of mortal accident;
From diminution safe and weakening age;
While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays;
And countless generations of mankind
Depart; and leave no vestige where they trod.;:




500


The Excursion


We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love.;
And, even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.
But what is error? "-" Answer he who can!"
The Sceptic somewhat haughtily exclaimed:
"Love, Hope, and Admiration,-are they not
Mad Fancy's favourite vassals? Does not life
Use them, full oft, as pioneers to ruin,
Guides to destruction? Is it well to trust
Imagination's light when reason's fails,
The unguarded taper where the guarded faints?
-Stoop from those heights, and soberly declare
What error is; and, of our errors, which
Doth most debase the mind; the genuine seats
Of power, where are they? Who shall regulate,
With truth, the scale of intellectual rank?"
"Methinks," persuasively the Sage replied,
"That for this arduous office you possess
Some rare advantages. Your early days
A grateful recollection must supply
Of much exalted good by Heaven vouchsafed
To dignify the humblest state.-Your voice
Hath, in my hearing, often testified
That poor men's children, they, and they alone,
By their condition taught, can understand
The wisdom of the prayer that daily asks
For daily bread. A consciousness is yours
How feelingly religion may be learned
In smoky cabins, from a mother's tongueHeard where the dwelling vibrates to the din
Of the contiguous torrent, gathering strength
At every moment-and, with strength, increase
'Of fury; or, while snow is at the door,
Assaulting and defending, and the wind,
A sightless labourer, whistles at his workFearful; but resignation tempers fear,
And piety is sweet to infant minds.
-The Shepherd-lad, that in the sunshine carves,
On the green turf, a dial-to divide
The silent hours; and who to that report
Can portion out his pleasures, and adapt,
Throughout a long and lonely summer's day
His round of pastoral duties, is not left
With less intelligence for moral things




The Excursion
Of gravest import. Early he perceives,
Within himself, a measure and a rule,
Which to the sun of truth he can apply,
That shines for him, and shines for all mankind.
Experience daily fixing his regards
On nature's wants, he knows how few they are,
And where they lie, how answered and appeased.
This knowledge ample recompense affords
For manifold privations; he refers
His notions to this standard; on this rock
Rests his desires; and hence, in after life,
Soul-strengthening patience, and sublime content.
Imagination-not permitted here
To waste her powers, as in the worldling's mind,
On fickle pleasures, and superfluous cares,
And trivial ostentation-is left free
And puissant to range the solemn walks
Of time and nature, girded by a zone
That, while it binds, invigorates and supports.
Acknowledge, then, that whether by the side
Of his poor hut, or on the mountain top,
Or in the cultured field, a Man so bred
(Take from him what you will upon the score
Of ignorance or illusion) lives and breathes
For noble purposes of mind: his heart
Beats to the heroic song of ancient days;
His eye distinguishes, his soul creates.
And those illusions, which excite the scorn
Or move the pity of unthinking minds,
Are they not mainly outward ministers
Of inward conscience? with whose service charged
They came and go, appeared and disappear,
Diverting evil purposes, remorse
Awakening, chastening an intemperate grief,
Or pride of heart abating: and, whene'er
For less important ends those phantoms move,
Who would forbid them, if their presence serveOn thinly-peopled mountains and wild heaths,
Filling a space, else vacant-to exalt
The forms of Nature, and enlarge her powers?
Once more to distant ages of the world
Let us revert, and place before our thoughts
The face which rural solitude might wear
To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece.


501




502


The Excursion


-In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched
On the soft grass through half a summer's day,
With music lulled his indolent repose:
And, in some fit of weariness, if he,
When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear
A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds
Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched,
Even from the blazing chariot of the sun,
A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute,
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.
The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye
Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart
Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed
That timely light, to share his joyous sport:
And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes
By echo multiplied from rock or cave,
Swept in the storm of chase; as moon and stars
Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven,
When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked
His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked
The Naiad. Sunbeams, upon distant hills
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,
Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.
The Zephyrs fanning, as they passed, their wings,
Lacked not, for love, fair objects whom they wooed
With genitle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,
Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side,
And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard, —
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome Deities; or Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring God!"
The strain was aptly chosen; and I could mark
Its kindly influence, o'er the yielding brovw
Of our Companion, gradually diffused;
While, listening, he had paced the noiseless turf,
Like one whose untired ear a murmuring stream
Detains; but tempted now to interpose,
He with a smile exclaimed:



The Excursion


503


"'Tis well you speak
At a safe distance from our native land,And from the mansions where our youth was taught.
The true descendants of those godly men
Who swept from Scotland, in a flame of zeal,
Shrine, altar, image, and the massy piles
That harboured them,-the souls retaining yet
The churlish features of that after-race
Who fled to woods, caverns, and jutting rocks,
In deadly scorn of superstitious rites,
Or what their scruples construed to be such —
How, think you, would they tolerate this scheme
Of fine propensities, that tends, if urged
Far as it might be urged, to sow afresh
The weeds of Romish phantasy, in vain
Uprooted; would re-consecrate our wells
To good Saint Fillan and to fair Saint Anne;
And from long banishment recall Saint Giles,
To watch again with tutelary love
O'er stately Edinborough throned on crags?
A blessed restoration, to behold
The patron, on the shoulders of his priests,
Once more parading through her crowded streets,
Now simply guarded by the sober powers
Of science, and philosophy, and sense!"
This answer followed.-" You have turned my thoughts
Upon our brave Progenitors, who rose
Against idolatry with warlike mind,
And shrunk from vain observances, to lurk
In woods, and dwell under impending rocks
Ill-sheltered, and oft wanting fire and food;
Why?-for this very reason that they felt,
And did acknowledge, wheresoe'er they moved,
A spiritual presence, oft-times misconceived,
But still a high dependence, a divine
Bounty and government, that filled their hearts
With joy, and gratitude, and fear, and love;
And from their fervent lips drew hymns of praise,
That through the desert rang. Though favoured less,
Far less, than these, yet such, in their degree,
Were those bewildered Pagans of old time.
Beyond their own poor natures-and above
They looked; were humbly thatnkful for the good
Which the warm sun solicited, and earth




504.The Excursion


Bestowed; were gladsome,-and their moral sense
They fortified with reverence for the Gods;
And they had hopes that overstepped the Grave.
Now, shall our great Discoverers," he exclaimed,
Raising his voice triumphantly, "obtain
From sense and reason, less than these obtained,
Though far misled? Shall men for whom our age
Unbaffled powers of vision hath prepared,.
To explore the world without and world within,
Be joyless as the blind? Ambitious spiritsWhom earth, at this late season, hath produced
To regulate the moving spheres, and weigh
The planets in the hollow of their hand;
And they who rather dive than soar, whose pains
Have solved the elements, or analysed
The thinking principle-shall they in fact
Prove a degraded Race? and what avails
Renown, if their presumption make them such?
Oh! there is laughter at their work in heaven!
Inquire of ancient Wisdom; go, demand
Of mighty Nature, if 'twas ever meant
That we should pry far off yet be unraised;
That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore,
Viewing all objects unremittingly
In disconnection dead and spiritless;
And still dividing, and dividing still,
Break down all grandeur, still unsatisfied
With the perverse attempt, while littleness
May yet become more little; waging thus
An impious warfare with the very life
Of our own souls!
And if indeed there be
An all-pervading Spirit, upon whom
Our dark foundations rest, could he design
That this magnificent effect of power,
The earth we tread, the sky that we behold
By day, and all the pomp which night reveals;
That these-and that superior mystery
Our vital frame, so fearfully devised,
And the dread soul within it —should exist
Only to be examined, pondered, searched,
Probed, vexed, and criticised? Accuse me not
Of arrogance, unknown -Wanderer as I am,
If,. having walked with Nature threescore years,




The Excursion


505


And offered, far as frailty would allow,
My heart a daily sacrifice to Truth,
I now affirm of Nature and of Truth,
Whom I have served, that their DIVINITY
Revolts, offended at the ways of men
Swayed by such motives, to such ends employed;
Philosophers, who, though the human soul
Be of a thousand faculties composed,
And twice ten thousand interests, do yet prize
This soul, and the transcendent universe,
No more than as a mirror that reflects
To proud Self-love her own intelligence;
That one, poor, finite object, in the abyss
Of infinite Being, twinkling restlessly i
Nor higher place can be assigned to him
And his compeers-the laughing Sage of France.Crowned was he, if my memory do not err,
With laurel planted upon hoary hairs,
In sign of conquest by his wit achieved
And benefits his wisdom had conferred;
His stooping body tottered with wreaths of flowers
Opprest, far less becoming ornaments
Than Spring oft twines about a mouldering tree;
Yet so it pleased a fond, a vain, old Man,
And a most frivolous people. Him I mean
Who penned, to ridicule confiding faith,
This sorry Legend; which by chance we found,Piled in a nook, through malice, as might seem,
Among more innocent rubbish.".-Speaking thus,
With a brief notice when, and how, and where,
We had espied the book, he drew it forth;
And courteously, as if the act removed,
At once, all traces from the good Man's heart
Of unbenign aversion or contempt,
Restored it to its owner. "Gentle Friend,"
Herewith he grasped the Solitary's hand,
"You have known jights and guides better than these.
Ah! let not aught amiss within dispose
A noble mind to practise on herself,
And tempt opinion to support the wrongs
Of passion: whatsoe'er be felt or feared,
From higher judgment-seats make no appeal
To lower: can you question that the soul
Inherits an allegiance, not by choice




506


The Excursion


To be cast off, upon an oath proposed.
By each new upstarts notion? In the ports,
Of levity no refuge can be found,
No shelter, for a spirit in distress.
He, who by wilful disesteem of life
And proud insensibility to hope,
Affronts the eye of Solitude; shall learn..
That her mild nature can be terrible;
That neither she nor Silence lack the power
To avenge their own insulted majesty.
O blest seclusion! when the mind admits
The law of duty.;, and can therefore move
Through each vicissitude of loss,and gain,
Linked in entire complacence with her choice;
When youth's presumptuousness is mellowed down,
And manhood's vain anxiety dismissed;
When wisdom shows her seasonable fruit,
Upon the boughs of sheltering leisure hung
In sober plenty; when the spirit stoops
To drink with gratitude the crystal stream
Of unreproved enjoyment; and is pleased
To muse, and be saluted by the air
Of meek repentance, wafting wall-flower scents
From out the crumbling ruins of fallen pride
And chambers of transgression, now frorlrn.
0, calm contented days, and peaceful nights!
Who, when such good can be obtained, would strive
To reconcile his manhood to a couch
Soft, as'may seem, but, under that disguise,
Stuffed with the thorny substance of the past
For fixed annoyance; and full oft beset
With floating dreams, black and disconsolate,,
The vapoury phantoms of futurity?
Within the soul a faculty abides;
That with interpositions, which. would hide
And darken, so can deal that they become
Contingencies of pomp-;, and serve to exalt
Her native brightness. As the ample moon,
In the deep stillness. of a summer even
Rising behind a thick and lofty grove,.
Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light,
In the green trees; and, kindling on all' sides -
Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil.
Into a substance glorious as -her own,




The    Excursion,507
Yea, with her own incorporated, by powerCapacious and serene. Like power abides
In man's celestial spirit; virtue thus
Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds
A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire,
From the encumbrances of mortal life,
From error, disappointment-nay, from guilt;
And sometimes, so relenting justice wills,
From palpable oppressions of despair."
The Solitary by these words was touched
With manifest emotion, and exclaimed;
"But how begin? and whence?-' The Mind is freeResolve,' the haughty Moralist would say,
'This single act is all that we demand.'
Alas! such wisdom bids a creature fly
Whose very sorrow is, that time hath shorn
His natural wings!-To friendship let him turn
For succour; but perhaps he sits alone
On stormy waters, tossed in a little boat
That holds but him, and can contain no more!
Religion tells of amity sublime
Which no condition can preclude; of One
Who sees all suffering, comprehends all wants,
All weakness fathoms, can supply all needs:
But is that bounty absolute? ---His gifts,
Are they not, still, in-some degree, rewards
For acts of service? Can his love extend
To hearts that own not him?  Will showers of grace,
When in the sky no promise may be seen,
Fall to refresh a parched and withered land?'
Or shall the groaning Spirit cast her load
At the Redeemer's feet? "
In rueful tone,
With some impatience in his mien, he spake:
Back to my mind rushed all that had been urged
To calm the Sufferer when his story closed;
I looked for counsel as unbending now;
But a discriminating sympathy
Stooped to this apt reply:"As men from men
Do, in the constitution of their souls,
Differ, by mystery not to be explained;
And as we fall by various ways, and sink
One deeper than another, self-condemned,




508.


The Excursion


Through manifold degrees of guilt and shame;
So manifold and various are the ways
Of restoration, fashioned to the steps
Of all infirmity, and tending all
To the same point, attainable by allPeace in ourselves, and union with our God.
For you, assuredly, a hopeful road
Lies open: we have heard from you a voice
At every moment softened in its course
By tenderness of heart; have seen your eye,
Even like an altar lit by fire from heaven,
Kindle before us.-Your discourse this day,
That, like the fabled Lethe, wished to flow
In creeping sadness, through oblivious shades
Of death and night, has caught at every turn
The colours of the sun. Access for you
Is yet preserved to principles of truth,
Which the imaginative Will upholds
In seats of wisdom, not to be approached
By the inferior Faculty that moulds,
With her minute and speculative pains,
Opinion, ever changing!
I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation. Here you stand,
Adore, and worship, when you know it not;
Pious beyond the intention of your thought;
-Devout above the meaning of your will.
-Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel.
The estate of man would be indeed forlorn
If false conclusions of the reasoning power
Made the eye blind, and closed the passages




The Excursion


509


Through which the ear converses with the heart.
Has not the soul, the being of your life,
Received ashock of awful consciousness,
In some calm season, when these lofty rocks
At night's approach bring down the unclouded sky,
To rest upon their circumambient walls;
A temple framing of dimensions vast,
And yet not too enormous for the sound
Of human anthems-choral song, or burst
Sublime of instrumental harmony,
To glorify the Eternal! What if these
Did never break the stillness that prevails
Here,-if the solemn nightingale be mute,
And the soft woodlark here did never chant
Her vespers,-Nature fails not to provide
Impulse and utterance. The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights,
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks;
The little rills, and waters numberless,
Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes
With the loud streams: and often, at the hour
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard,
Within the circuit of this fabric huge,
One voice-the solitary raven, flying
Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome,
Unseen, perchance above all power of sightAn iron knell! with echoes from afar
Faint-and still fainter-as the cry, with which
The wanderer accompanies her flight
Through the calm region, fades upon the ear,
Diminishing by distance till it seemed
To expire; yet from the abyss is caught again,
And yet again recovered!
But descending
From these imaginative heights, that yield
Far-stretching views into eternity,
Acknowledge that to Nature's humbler power
Your cherished sullenness is forced to bend
Even here, where her amenities are sown
With sparing hand. Then trust yourself abroad
To range her blooming bowers, and spacious fields,
Where on the labours of the happy throng
She smiles, including in her wide embrace
City, and town, and tower,-and sea with ships
Sprinkled;-be our Companion while we track




5IO


The Excursion


Her rivers populous with gliding life;
While, free as air, o'er printless: sands we march,.
Or pierce the, gloom of her/majestic woods.;
Roaming, or resting under grateful shade
In peace and meditative cheerfulness;
Where living things, and things inanimate,
Do speak, at. Heaven's command, to eye and ear,
And speak to social reason's inner sense,
With inarticulate language.
For,, the Man —
Who, in this spirit, communes' with the. Forms
Of nature, who with understanding heart.
Both knows and loves such objects as excite
No morbid passions,. no disquietude,
No vengeance, and no hatred-needs must feel
The joy of that pure principle of love
So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught
Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose
But seek for objects of a kindred love
In fellow-natures and a kindred joy.
Accordingly he by degrees perceives
His feelings of aversion softened down,
A holy tenderness pervade his frame.
His sanity of reason not impaired,
Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing clear,
From a clear fountain flowing; he looks round
And seeks for good; and finds the good he seeks:
Until abhorrence and contempt are things
He only knows by name; and, if he::hear,
From other' mouths, the language which they speak,
He is compassionate; and has no thought,
No feeling, which can overcome his love.
And further; by contemplating these Forms
In the relations which they bear'to man,
He shall discern, how, through -the various means
Which silently they yield,-are multiplied
The spiritual presences of absent things.
Trust me, that for the instructed, time will come
When they shall meet no object but may teach'.'
Some acceptable lesson to their minds
Of human suffering, or of human joy..
So shall they learn, while all things speak of man,
Their duties from all forms; and- general laws,
And local accidents% shall tend alike




The Excursion
To rouse, to urge; and, with the will, confer
The ability to spread the blessings wide
Of true philanthropy. The light of love
Not failing, perseverance from their steps
Departing not, for them shall be confirmed
The glorious habit by which sense is made
Subservient still to moral purposes,
Auxiliar to divine. That change shall clothe
The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore
The burthen of existence. Science then
Shall be a precious visitant; and then,
And only then, be worthy of her name:
For then her heart shall kindle; her dull eye,
Dull and inanimate, no more shtall hang
Chained to its object in brute slavery;
But taught with patient interest to watch
The processes of things, and serve the cause
Of order and distinctness, not for this
Shall it forget that its most noble. use,
Its most illustrious province, must be found
In furnishing clear guidance, a support
Not treacherous,. to the mind's excursive power.
-So build we up the Being that we are;
Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of things
We shall be wise perforce; and, while inspired
By choice, and conscious that the Will is free,
Shall move unswerving, even as if impelled
By strict necessity, along the path
Of order and of good. Whatever we see,
Or feel, shall tend to quicken and refine;
Shall fix, in calmer seats of moral strength,
Earthly desires; and raise, to loftier heights
Of divine love, our intellectual soul."
Here closed the Sage that eloquent-harangue,
Poured forth with fervour in continuous stream,
Such as, remote, 'mid savage wilderness,
An Indian Chief discharges from his breast
Into the hearing of assembled tribes,
In open circle seated round, and hushed
As the unbreathing air, when not a leaf
Stirs in the mighty woods.-So did he speak:
The words he uttered shall not pass away
Dispersed, like music that the wind takes up
By snatches, and lets fall, to be forgotten;


'5 I




5I2


The Excursion


No-they sank into me, the bounteous gift
Of one whom time and nature had made wise,
Gracing his doctrine with authority
Which hostile spirits silently allow;
Of one accustomed to desires that feed
On fruitage gathered from the tree of life;
To hopes on knowledge and experience built;
Of one in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition; whence the Soul,
Though bound to earth by ties of pity and love,
From all injurious servitude was free.
The Sun, before his place of rest were reached
Had yet to travel far, but unto us,
To us who stood low in that hollow dell,
He had become invisible,-a pomp
Leaving behind of yellow radiance spread'
Over the mountain sides, in contrast bold
With ample shadows, seemingly, no less
Than those resplendent lights, his rich bequest;
A dispensation of his evening power.
-Adown the path that from the glen had led
The funeral train, the Shepherd and his Mate
Were seen descending:-forth to greet them ran
Our little Page: the rustic pair approach;
And in the Matron's countenance may be read
Plain indication that the words, which told
How that neglected Pensioner was sent
Before his time into a quiet grave,
Had done to her humanity no wrong:
But we are kindly welcomed-promptly served
With ostentatious zeal.-Along the floor
Of the small Cottage in the lonely Dell
A grateful couch was spread for our repose;
Where, in the guise of mountaineers, we lay,
Stretched upon fragrant heath, and lulled by sound
Of far-off torrents charming the still night,
And, to tired limbs and over-busy thoughts,
Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness..<




The Excursion                       513
BOOK FIFTH
THE PASTOR
ARGUMENT
Farewell to the Valley-Reflections-A large and populous Vale
described-The Pastor's Dwelling, and some account of him-Church
and Monuments-The Solitary musing, and where-Roused-In the
Churchyard the Solitary communicates the thoughts which had recently
passed through his mind-Lofty tone of the Wanderer's discourse of
yesterday adverted to-Rite of Baptism, and the professions accompanying it, contrasted with the real state of human life-Apology for
the Rite-Inconsistency of the best men-Acknowledgment that practice falls far below the injunctions of duty as existing in the mindGeneral complaint of a falling-off in the value of life after the time of
youth-Outward appearances of content and happiness in degree
illusive-Pastor approaches-Appeal made to him-His answerWanderer in sympathy with him-Suggestion that the least ambitious
enquirers may be most free from error-The Pastor is desired to give
some portraits of the living or dead from his own observation of life
among these Mountains-And for what purpose-Pastor consentsMountain cottage-Excellent qualities of its Inhabitants-Solitary
expresses his pleasur; but denies the praise of virtue to worth of this
kind-Feelings of the Priest before he enters upon his account of
persons interred in the Churchyard-Graves of unbaptized InfantsFuneral and sepulchral observances, whence-Ecclesiastical Establishments, whence derived-Profession of belief in the doctrine of
Immortality.
"FAREWELL, deep Valley, with thy one rude House,
And its small lot of life-supporting fields,
And guardian rocks!-Farewell, attractive seat!
To the still influx of the morning light
Open, and day's pure cheerfulness, but veiled
From human observation, as if yet
Primeval forests wrapped thee round with dark
Impenetrable shade; once more farewell,
Majestic circuit, beautiful abyss,
By Nature destined from the birth of things
For quietness profound!"
Upon the side
Of that brown ridge, sole outlet of the vale
Which foot of boldest stranger would attempt,
Lingering behind my comrades, thus I breathed
A parting tribute to a spot that seemed
Like the fixed centre of a troubled world.
Again I halted with reverted eyes;
The chain that would not slacken, was at'length
Snapt,-and, pursuing leisurely my way,
S




514             The Excursion
How vain, thought I, is it by change of place
To seek that comfort which the mind denies;
Yet trial and temptation oft are shunned
Wisely; and by such tenure do we hold
Frail life's possessions, that even they whose fate
Yields no peculiar reason of complaint
Might, by the promise that is here, be won
To steal from active duties, and embrace
Obscurity, and undisturbed repose.
-Knowledge, methinks, in these disordered times,
Should be allowed a privilege to have
Her anchorites, like piety of old;
Men, who, from faction sacred, and unstained
By war, might, if so minded, turn aside
Uncensured, and subsist, a scattered few
Living to God and nature, and content
With that communion. Consecrated be
The spots where such abide! But happier still
The Man, whom, furthermore, a hope attends
That meditation and research may guide
His privacy to principles and powers
Discovered or invented; or set forth,
Through his acquaintance with the ways of truth,
In lucid order; so that, when his course
Is run, some faithful eulogist may say,
He sought not praise, and praise did overlook
His unobtrusive merit; but his life,
Sweet to himself, was exercised in good
That shall survive his name and memory.
Acknowledgments of gratitude sincere
Accompanied these musings; fervent thanks
For my own peaceful lot and happy choice;
A choice that from the passions of the world
Withdrew, and fixed me in a still retreat;
Sheltered, but not to social duties lost,
Secluded, but not buried; and with song
Cheering my days, and with industrious thought;
With the ever-welcome company of books;
With virtuous friendship's soul-sustaining aid,
And with the blessings of domestic love.
Thus occupied in mind I paced along,
Following the rugged road, by sledge or wheel
Worn in the moorland, till I overtook
My two Associates, in the morning sunshine




The Excursion


515


Halting together on a rocky knoll,
Whence the bare road descended rapidly
To the green meadows of another vale.
Here did our pensive Host put forth his hand
In sign of farewell. "Nay," the old Man said,
"The fragrant air its coolness still retains;
The herds and flocks are yet abroad to crop
The dewy grass; you cannot leave us now,
We must not part at this inviting hour."
He yielded, though reluctant; for his mind
Instinctively disposed him to retire
To his own covert; as a billow, heaved
Upon the beach, rolls back into the sea.
-So we descend: and winding round a rock
Attain a point that showed the valley-stretched
In length before us; and, not distant far,
Upon a rising ground a grey church-tower,
Whose battlements were screened by tufted trees.
And towards a crystal Mere, that lay beyond
Among steep hills and woods embosomed, flowed
A copious stream with boldly-winding course;
Here traceable, there hidden-there again
To sight restored, and glittering in the sun.
On the stream's bank, and everywhere, appeared
Fair dwellings, single, or in social knots;
Some scattered o'er the level, others perched
On the hill sides, a cheerful quiet scene,
Now in its morning purity arrayed.
"As 'mid some happy valley of the Alps,"
Said I, " once happy, ere tyrannic power,
Wantonly breaking in upon the Swiss,
Destroyed their unoffending commonwealth,
A popular equality reigns here,
Save for yon stately House beneath whose roof
A rural lord might dwell."-" No feudal pomp,
Or power," replied the Wanderer, " to that House
Belongs, but there in his allotted Home
Abides, from year to year, a genuine Priest,
The shepherd of his flock; or, as a king
Is styled, when most affectionately praised,
The father of his people. Such is he;
And rich and poor, and young and old, rejoice
Under his spiritual sway. He hath vouchsafed,
To me some portion of a kind regard;




516


The Excursion


And something also of his inner mind
Hath he imparted —but I speak of him
As he is known to all.
The calm delights
Of unambitious piety he chose,
And learning's solid dignity; though born
Of knightly race, nor wanting powerful friends.
Hither, in prime of manhood, he withdrew
From academic bowers. He loved the spotWho does not love his native soil?-he prized
The ancient rural character, composed
Of simple manners, feelings unsupprest
And undisguised, and strong and serious thought
A character reflected in himself,
With such embellishment as well beseems
His rank and sacred function. This deep vale
Winds far in reaches hidden from our sight,
And one a turreted manorial hall
Adorns, in which the good Man's ancestors
Have dwelt through ages, Patrons of this Cure.
To them, and to his own judicious pains,
The Vicar's dwelling, and the whole domain,
Owes that presiding aspect which might well
Attract your notice; statelier than could else
Have been bestowed, through course of common chance,
On an unwealthy mountain Benefice."
This said, oft pausing, we pursued our way;
Nor reached the village-churchyard till the sun,
Travelling at steadier pace than ours, had risen
Above the summits of the highest hills,
And round our path darted oppressive beams.
As chanced, the portals of the sacred Pile
Stood open; and we entered. On my frame,
At such transition from the fervid air,
A grateful coolness fell, that seemed to strike
The heart, in concert with that temperate awe
And natural reverence which the place inspired.
Not raised in nice proportions was the pile,
But large and massy; for duration built;
With pillars crowded, and the roof upheld
By naked rafters intricately crossed,
Like leafless underboughs, in some thick wood,
All withered by the depth of shade above.




The Excursion


5I7


Admonitory texts inscribed the wallsj
Each, in its ornamental scroll, enclosed;
Each also crowned with winged heads-a pair
Of rudely-painted Cherubim. The floor
Of nave and aisle, in unpretending guise,
Was occupied by oaken benches ranged
In seemly rows; the chancel only showed
Some vain distinctions, marks of earthly state
By immemorial privilege allowed;
Though with the Encincture's special sanctity
But ill according. An heraldic shield,
Varying its tincture with the changeful light,
Imbued the altar-window; fixed aloft
A faded hatchment hung, and one by time
Yet undiscoloured. A capacious pew
Of sculptured oak stood here, with drapery lined;
And marble monuments were here displayed
Thronging the walls; and on the floor beneath
Sepulchral stones appeared, with emblems graven
And foot-worn epitaphs, and some with small
And shining effigies of brass inlaid.
The tribute by these various records claimed,
Duly we paid, each after each, and read
The ordinary chronicle of birth,
Office, alliance, and promotion-all
Ending in dust; of upright magistrates,
Grave doctors strenuous for the mother-church,
And uncorrupted senators, alike
To king and people true. A brazen plate,
Not easily deciphered, told of one
Whose course of earthly honour was begun
In quality of page among the train
Of the eighth Henry, when he crossed the seas
His royal state to show, and prove his strength
In tournament, upon the fields of France.
Another tablet registered the death,
And praised the gallant bearing, of a Knight
Tried in the sea-fights of the second Charles..
Near this brave Knight his Father lay entombed;
And, to the silent language giving voice,
I read,-how in his manhood's earlier day
He, 'mid the afflictions of intestine war
And rightful government subverted, found
One only solace-that he had espoused




5i8


The Excursion


A virtuous Lady tenderly beloved
For her benign perfections; and yet more
Endeared to him, for 'this, that, in her state
Of wedlock richly crowned with Heaven's regard,
She with a numerous issue filled his house,
Who throve, like plants, uninjured by the storm
That laid their country waste. No need to speak
Of less particular notices assigned
To Youth or Maiden gone before their time,
And Matrons and unwedded Sisters old;
Whose charity and goodness were rehearsed
In modest panegyric.
"These dim lines,
What would they tell? "said I,-but, from the task
Of puzzling out that faded narrative,
With whisper soft my venerable Friend
Called me; and, looking down the darksome aisle,
I saw the Tenant of the lonely vale
Standing apart; with curved arm reclined
On the baptismal font; his pallid face
Upturned, as if his mind were rapt, or lost
In some abstraction;-gracefully he stood,
The semblance bearing of a sculptured form
That leans upon a monumental urn
In peace, from morn to night, from year to year.
Him from that posture did the Sexton rouse;
Who entered, humming carelessly a tune,
Continuation haply of the notes
That had beguiled the work from which he came,
With spade and mattock o'er his shoulder hung;
To be deposited, for future need,
In their appointed place. The pale Recluse
Withdrew; and straight we followed,-to a spot
Where sun and shade were intermixed; for there
A broad oak, stretching forth its leafy arms
From an adjoining pasture, overhung
Small space of that green churchyard with a light
And'pleasant awning. On the moss-grown wall
My ancient Friend and I together took
Our seats; and thus the Solitary spake,
Standing before us:" Did you note the mien
Of that self-solaced, easy-hearted churl,
Death's hireling, who scoops out his neighbour's grave,




The Excursion


519


Or wraps an old acquaintance up in clay,
All unconcerned as he would bind a sheaf,
Or plant a tree. And did you hear his voice?
I was abruptly summoned by the sound
From some affecting images and thoughts,
Which then were silent; but crave utterance now.
Much," he continued, with dejected look,
"Much, yesterday, was said in glowing phrase,
Of our sublime dependencies, and hopes
For future states of being; and the wings
Of speculation, joyfully outspread,
Hovered above our destiny on earth:
But stoop, and place the prospect of the soul
In sober contrast with reality,
And man's substantial life. If this mute earth
Of what it holds could speak, and every grave
Were as a volume, shut, yet capable
Of yielding its contents to eye and ear,
We should recoil, stricken with sorrow and shame,
To see disclosed, by such dread proof, how ill
That which is done accords with what is known
To reason, and by conscience is enjoined;
How idly, how perversely, life's whole course,
To this conclusion, deviates from the line,
Or of the end stops short, proposed to all
At her aspiring outset.
Mark the babe
Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
With tiny finger-to let fall a tear;
And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
The outward functions of intelligent man;
A grave proficient in amusive feats
Of puppetry, that from the lap declare
His expectations, and announce his claims
To that inheritance which millions rue
That they were ever born to! In due time
A day of solemn ceremonial comes;
When they, who for this Minor hold in trust
Rights that transcend the loftiest heritage
Of mere humanity, present their Charge,
For this occasion daintily adorned,




520


The Excursion


At the baptismal font. And when the pure
And consecrating element hath cleansed
The original stain, the child is there received
Into the second ark, Christ's church, with trust
That he, from wrath redeemed, therein shall float
Over the billows of this troublesome world
To the fair land of everlasting life.
Corrupt affections, covetous desires,
Are all renounced; high as the thought of man
Can carry virtue, virtue is professed;
A dedication made, a promise given
For due provision to control and guide,
And unremitting progress to ensure
In holiness and truth."
"You cannot blame,"
Here interposing fervently I said,
"Rites which attest that Man by nature lies
Bedded for good and evil in a gulf
Fearfully low; nor will your judgment scorn
Those services, whereby attempt is made
To lift the creature toward that eminence
On which, now fallen, erewhile in majesty
He stood; or if not so, whose top serene
At least he feels 'tis given him to descry;
Not without aspirations, evermore
Returning, and injunctions from within
Doubt to cast off and weariness; in trust
That what the Soul perceives, if glory lost,
May be, through pains and persevering hope,
Recovered; or, if hitherto unknown,
Lies within reach, and one day shall be gained."
"I blame them not," he calmly answered-" no;
The outward ritual and established forms
With which communities of men invest
These inward feelings, and the aspiring vows
To which the lips give public utterance
Are both a natural process; and by me
Shall pass uncensured; though the issue prove,
Bringing from age to age its own reproach,
Incongruous, impotent, and blank.-But, oh!
If to be weak is to be wretched-miserable,
As the lost Angel by a human voice
Hath mournfully pronounced, then, in my mind,
Far better not to move at all than move




The Excursion


521


By impulse sent from such illusive power,That finds and cannot fasten down; that grasps
And is rejoiced, and loses while it grasps;
That tempts, emboldens-for a time sustains,
And then betrays; accuses and inflicts
Remorseless punishment; and so retreads
The inevitable circle: better far
Than this, to graze the herb in thoughtless peace,
By foresight or remembrance, undisturbed!
Philosophy! and thou more vaunted name
Religion! with thy statelier retinue,
Faith, Hope, and Charity-from the visible world
Choose for your emblems whatsoe'er ye find
Of safest guidance or of firmest trust —
The torch, the star, the anchor; nor except
The cross itself, at whose unconscious feet
The generations of mankind have knelt
Ruefully seized, and shedding bitter tears,
And through that conflict seeking rest-of you,
High-titled Powers, am I constrained to ask,
Here standing, with the unvoyageable sky
In faint reflection of infinitude
Stretched overhead, and at my pensive feet
A subterraneous magazine of bones,
In whose dark vaults my own shall soon be laid,.
Where are your triumphs? your dominion where?
And in what age ardmitted and confirmed?
-Not for a happy land do I enquire,
Island or grove, that hides a blessed few
Who, with obedience willing and sincere,
To your serene authorities conform;
But whom,' I ask, of individual Souls,
Have ye withdrawn from passion's crooked ways,
Inspired, and thoroughly fortified?-If the heart
Could be inspected to its inmost folds
By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,:
Who shall be named-in the resplendent liyre
Of sages, martyrs, confessors-the man
Whom the best might of faith, wherever fixed,
For one day's little compass, has preserved
From painful and discreditable shocks.
Of contradiction, from some vague desire
Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse
To some unsanctioned fear?"
S2




522


The Excursion


"If this be so,
And Man," said I, "be in his noblest shape
Thus pitiably infirm; then, he who made,
And who shall judge the creature, will forgive.
-Yet, in its general tenor, your complaint
Is all too true; and surely not misplaced:
For, from this pregnant spot of ground, such thoughts
Rise to the notice of a serious mind
By natural exhalation. With the dead
In their.repose, the living in their mirth,
Who can reflect, unmoved, upon the round
Of smooth and solemnized complacencies,
By which, on Christian lands, from age to age
Profession mocks performance. Earth is sick,
And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words
Which States and Kingdoms utter when they talk
Of truth and justice. Turn to private life
And social neighbourhood; look we to ourselves;
A light of duty shines on every day
For all; and yet how few are warmed or cheered!
How few who mingle with their fellow-men
And still remain self-governed, and apart,
Like this our honoured Friend; and thence acquire
Right to expect his vigorous decline,
That promises to the end a blest old age!"
" Yet," with a smile of triumph thus exclaimed
The Solitary, " in the life of man,
If to the poetry of common speech
Faith may be given, we -see as in a glass
A true reflection of the circling year,
With all its seasons. Grant that Spring is there,
In spite of many a rough untoward blast,
HIopeful and promising with buds and flowers:;
Yet where is glowing Summer's long rich day,
That ought to follow faithfully expressed?
And mellow Autumn, charged with bounteous fruit,
Whert is she imaged? in what favoured clime
Her lavish pomp, and ripe magnificence?
-Yet, while the better part is missed, the worse
In man's autumnal season is set forth
With a resemblance not to be denied,
And that contents him; bowers that hear no more
The voice of gladness, less and less supply
Of outward sunshine and internal warmth;




The Excursion


523


And, with this change, sharp air and falling leaves,
Foretelling aged Winter's desolate sway.
How gay the habitations that bedeck
This fertile valley! Not a house but seems
To give assurance of content within;
Embosomed happiness, and placid love;
As if the sunshine of the day were met
With answering brightness in the hearts of all
Who walk this favoured ground. But chance-regards,.
And notice forced upon incurious ears;
These, if these only, acting in despite
Of the encomiums by my Friend pronounced
On humble life, forbid the judging mind
To trust the smiling aspect of this fair
And noiseless commonwealth. The simple race
Of mountaineers (by nature's self removed
From foul temptations, and by constant care
Of a good shepherd tended as themselves
Do tend their flocks) partake man's general lot
With little mitigation. They escape,
Perchance, the heavier woes of guilt; feel not
The tedium of fantastic idleness:
Yet life, as with the multitude, with them
Is fashioned like an ill-constructed tale;
That on the outset wastes its gay desires,
Its fair adventures, its enlivening hopes,
And pleasant interests-for the sequel leaving
Old things repeated with diminished grace;
And all the laboured novelties at best
Imperfect substitutes, whose use and power
Evince the want and weakness whence they spring."
While in this serious mood we held discourse,
The reverend Pastor toward the churchyard gate
Approached; and, with a mild respectful air
Of native cordiality, our Friend
Advanced to greet him. With a gracious mien
Was he received, and mutual joy prevailed.
Awhile they stood in conference, and I guess
That he, who now upon the mossy wall
Sate by my side, had vanished, if a wish
Could have transferred him to the flying clouds,
Or the least penetrable hiding-place
In his own valley's rocky guardianship.
-For me, I looked upon the pair, well pleased:




524


The Excursion


Nature had framed them both, and both were marked
By circumstance, with intermixture fine
Of contrast and resemblance. To an oak,
Hardy and grand, a weather-beaten oak,
Fresh in the strength and majesty of age,
One might be likened: flourishing appeared,Though somewhat past the fulness of his prime,
The other-like a stately sycamore,
That spreads, in gentle pomp, its honied shade.
A general greeting was exchanged; and soon
The Pastor learned that his approach had given
A welcome interruption to discourse
Grave, and in truth too often sad.-" Is Man
A child of hope? Do generations press
On generations, without progress made?
Halts the individual, ere his hairs be grey,
Perforce? Are we a creature in whom good
Preponderates, or evil? Doth the will
Acknowledge reason's law? A living power
Is virtue, or no better than a name,
Fleeting as health or beauty, and unsound?
So that the only substance which remains,
(For thus the tenor of complaint hath run)
Among so many shadows, are the pains
And penalties of miserable life,
Doomed to decay, and then expire in dust!
-Our cogitations, this way have been drawn,
These are the points," the Wanderer said, " on which
Our inquest turns.-Accord, good Sir! the light
Of your experience to dispel this gloom:
By your persuasive wisdom shall the heart
That frets, or languishes, be stilled and cheered."
"Our nature," said the Priest, in mild reply,
"Angels may weigh and fathom: they perceive,
With undistempered and unclouded spirit,
The object as it is; but, for ourselves,
That speculative height we may not reach.
The good and evil are our own; and we
Are that which we would contemplate from far.
Knowledge, for us, is difficult to gainIs difficult to gain, and hard to keepAs virtue's self; like virtue is beset
With snares; tried, tempted, subject to decay.
Love, admiration, fear, desire, and hate,




The Excursion


525


Blind were we without these: through these alone
Are capable to notice or discern
Or to record; we judge, but cannot be
Indifferent judges. 'Spite of proudest boast,
Reason, best reason, is to imperfect man
An effort only, and a noble aim;
A crown, an attribute of sovereign power,
Still to be courted-never to be won.
-Look forth, or each man dive into himself;
What sees he but a creature too perturbed;
That is transported to excess; that yearns,
Regrets, or trembles, wrongly, or too much;
Hopes rashly, in disgust as rash recoils;
Battens on spleen, or moulders in despair?
Thus comprehension fails, and truth is missed;
Thus darkness and delusion round our path
Spread, from disease, whose subtle injury lurks
Within the very faculty of sight.
Yet for the general purposes of faith
In Providence, for solace and support,
We may not doubt that who can best subject
The will to reason's law, can strictliest live
And act in that obedience, he shall gain
The clearest apprehension of those truths,
Which unassisted reason's utmost power
Is too infirm to reach. But, waiving this,
And our regards confining within bounds
Of less exalted consciousness, through which
The very multitude are free to range,
We safely may affirm that human life
Is either fair and tempting, a soft scene
Grateful to sight, refreshing to the soul,
Or a forbidden tract of cheerless view;
Even as the same is looked at, or approached.
Thus, when in changeful April fields are white
With new-fallen snow, if from the sullen north
Your walk conduct you hither, ere the sun
Hath gained his noontide height, this churchyard; filled
With mounds transversely lying side by side
From east to west, before you will appear
An unillumined, blank, and dreary plain,
With more than wintry cheerlessness and gloom
Saddening the heart. Go forward, and look back;
Look, from the quarter whence the lord of light,




526


The Excursion


Of life, of love, and gladness doth dispense
His beams; which, unexcluded in their'fall,
Upon the southern side of every grave
Have gently exercised a melting.power;
Then will a vernal prospect greet your eye,
All fresh and beautiful, and green and bright,
Hopeful and cheerful;-vanished is the pall
That overspread and chilled the sacred turf,
Vanished or hidden; and the whole domain,
To some, too lightly minded, might appear
A meadow carpet for the dancing hours.
-This contrast, not unsuitable to life,
Is to that other state more apposite,
Death and its two-fold aspect! wintry-one,
Cold, sullen, blank, from hope and joy shut out;
The' other, which the ray divine hath touched,
Replete with vivid promise, bright as spring."
"We see, then, as we feel;" the Wanderer thus
With a complacent animation spake,
"And in your judgment, Sir! the mind's repose
On evidence is not to be ensured
By act of naked reason. Moral truth
Is no mechanic structure, built by rule;
And which, once built, retains a stedfast shape
And undisturbed proportions; but a thing
Subject, you deem, to vital accidents;
And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,
Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head
Floats on the tossing waves. With joy sincere
I re-salute these sentiments confirmed
By your authority. But how acquire
The inward principle that gives effect
To outward argument; the passive will
Meek to admit; the active energy,
Strong and unbounded to embrace, and firm
To keep and cherish? how shall man unite
With self-forgetting tenderness of heart'
An earth-despising dignity of soul?
Wise in that union, and without it blind! "
"The way," said I, "to court, if not obtain
The ingenuous mind, apt to be set aright;
This, in the lonely dell discoursing, you
Declared at large; and by what exercise
From visible nature, or the inner self




The Excursion                 527
Power may be trained, and renovation brought
To those who need the gift. But, after all,
Is aught so certain as that man is doomed
To breathe beneath a vault of ignorance?
The natural roof of that dark house in which
His soul is pent! How little can be known —
This is the wise man's sigh;, how far we errThis is the good man's not unfrequent pang!
And they perhaps err least, the lowly class
Whom a benign necessity compels
To follow reason's least ambitious course;
Such do I mean who, unperplexed by doubt,
And unincited by a wish to look
Into high objects farther than they may,
Pace to and fro, from morn till eventide,
The narrow avenue of daily toil
For daily bread."
"Yes," buoyantly exclaimed:
The pale Recluse-" praise to the sturdy plough,
And patient spade; praise to the simple crook,
And ponderous loom-resounding while it holds
Body and mind in one captivity;
And let the, light mechanic tool be hailed
With honour; which, encasing by the power
Of long companionship, the artist's hand,
Cuts off that hand, with all its world of nerves,
From a too busy commerce with the heart
-Inglorious implements of craft and toil,
Both ye that shape and build, and ye that force
By slow solicitation, earth to yield
Her annual bounty, sparingly dealt forth
With wise reluctance; you would I extol,
Not for gross good alone which ye produce,
But for the impertinent and ceaseless strife
Of proofs and reasons ye preclude-in those
Who to your dull society are born,
And with their humble birthright rest content.
-Would I had ne'er renounced it! "
A slight flush
Of moral anger previously had tinged
The old Man's cheek; but, at this closing turn
Of self-reproach, it passed away. Said he,
' That which we feel we utter; as we think
So have we argued; reaping for our pains
No visible recompense. For our relief




528


The Excursion


You," to the Pastor turning thus he spake,
"Have kihdly interposed. May I entreat
Your further help? The mine of real life
Dig for us; and present us, in the shape
Of virgin ore, that gold which we, by pains
Fruitless as those of aery alchemists,
Seek from the torturing crucible. There lies
Around us a domain where you have long
Watched both the outward course and inner heart:
Give us, for our abstractions, solid facts;
For our disputes, plain pictures. Say what man
He is who cultivates yon hanging field;
What qualities of mind she bears, who comes,
For morn and evening service, with her pail,
To that green pasture; place before our sight
The family who dwell within yon house
Fenced round with glittering laurel; or in that
Below, from which the curling smoke ascends.
Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
And have the dead around us, take from them
Your instances; for they are both.best known,
And by frail man most equitably judged.
Epitomise the life; pronounce, you can,
Authentic epitaphs on some of these
Who, from their lowly mansions hither brought,
Beneath this turf lie mouldering at our feet:
So, by your records, may our doubts be solved;
And so, not searching higher, we may learn
To rize e he breath we share with human kind;
And look upon the dust of man with awe."
The Priest replied-" An office you impose
For which peculiar requisites are mine;
Yet much, I feel, is wanting-else the task
Would be most grateful. True indeed it is
That they whom death has hidden from our sight
Are worthiest of the mind's regard; with these
The future cannot contradict the past:
Mortality's last exercise and proof
Is undergone; the transit made that shows
The very Soul, revealed as she departs.
Yet, on your first suggestion, will I give,
Ere we descend into these silent vaults,
One picture from the living.
You behold,




The Excursion


529


High on the breast of yon dark mountain, dark
With stony barrenness, a shining speck
Bright as a sunbeam sleeping till a shower
Brush it away, or cloud pass over it;
And such it might be deemed-a sleeping sunbeam;
But 'tis a plot of cultivated ground,
Cut off, an island in the dusky waste;
And that attractive brightness is its own.
The lofty site, by nature framed to tempt
Amid a wilderness of rocks and stones
The tiller's hand, a hermit might have chosen,
For opportunity presented, thence
Far forth to send his wandering eye o'er land
And ocean, and look down upon the works,
The habitations, and the ways of men,
Himself unseen! But no tradition tells
That ever hermit dipped his maple dish
In the sweet spring that lurks 'mid yon green fields;
And no such visionary views belong
To those who occupy and till the ground,
High on that mountain where they long have dwelt
A wedded pair in childless solitude.
A house of stones collected on the spot,
By rude hands built, with rocky knolls in froftt,
Backed also by a ledge of rock, whose crest
Of birch-trees waves over the chimney top;
A rough abode-in colour, shape, and size,
Such as in unsafe times of border-war
Might have been wished for and contrived, to elude
The eye of roving plunderer-for their need
Suffices; and unshaken bears the assault
Of their most dreaded foe, the strong South-west
In anger blowing from the distant sea.
-Alone within her solitary hut;
There, or within the compass of her fields,
At any moment may the Dame be found,
True as the stock-dove to her shallow nest
And to the grove that holds it. She beguiles
By intermingled work of house and field
The summer's day, and winter's; with success
Not equal, but sufficient to maintain,
Even at the worst, a smooth stream of content,
Until the expected hour at which her Mate
From the far-distant quarry's vault returns;
And by his converse crowns a silent -day!




530


The Excursion


With evening cheerfulness. In powers of mind,
In scale of culture, few among my flock
Hold lower rank than this sequestered pair:
But true humility descends from heaven;
And that best gift of heaven hath fallen on them;
Abundant recompense for every want.
-Stoop from your height, ye proud, and copy these!
Who, in their noiseless dwelling-place, can hear
The voice of wisdom whispering scripture texts
For the mind's government, or temper's peace;
And recommending for their mutual need,
Forgiveness, patience, hope,, and charity!"
" Much was I pleased," the grey-haired Wanderer said,
"When to those shining fields our notice first
You turned; and yet more pleased have from your lips
Gathered this fair report of them who dwell
In that retirement;; whither, by such course
Of evil hap and good as oft awaits
A tired way-faring man, once I was brought
While traversing alone yon mountain pass.
Dark on my road the autumnal evening fell,
And night succeeded with unusual gloom,
So hazardous that feet and hands became
Guides better than mine eyes-until a light
High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought,
For human habitation; but I longed
To reach it, destitute of other hope.
I looked with steadiness as sailors look
On the north star, or watch-tower's distant lamp,
And saw the light-now fixed-and shifting nowNot like a dancing meteor, but in line
Of never-varying motion, to and fro.
It is no night-fire of the naked hills,
Thought I-some friendly covert must be near.
With this persuasion thitherward my steps
I turn, and reach at last the guiding light;
Joy to myself! but to the heart of her
Who there was standing on the open hill,
(The same kind Matron whom your tongue hath praised)
Alarm and disappointment 1 The alarm
Ceased, when she learned through what mishap I came,
And by what help had gained those distant fields.
Drawn from her cottage, on that aery height,
Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,




The Excursion


53I


Or paced the ground-to guide her Husband home,
By that unwearied signal, kenned afar;
An anxious duty! which the lofty site,
Traversed but by a few irregular paths,
Imposes, whensoe'er untoward chance
Detains him after his accustomed hour
Till night lies black upon the ground., 'But come,
Come,' said the Matron, 'to our poor abode;
Those dark rocks hide it!' Entering, I beheld
A blazing fire-beside a, cleanly hearth
Sate down; and to her office, with leave asked,
The Dame returned.
Or ere that glowing pile
Of mountain turf required the builder's hand
Its wasted splendour to repair, the door
Opened, and she re-entered with glad looks,
Her Helpmate following. Hospitable fare,
Frank conversation, made the evening's treat:
Need a bewildered traveller wish for more?
But more was given; I studied as we sate
By the bright fire, the good Man's form and face
Not less than beautiful; an open brow
Of undisturbed humanity-; a cheek
Suffused with something of a feminine hue;
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;
But, in the quicker turns of the discourse,
Expression slowly varying, that evinced
A tardy apprehension. From a fount
Lost, thought I, in the obscurities of time,
But honoured once, those features and that mien
May have descended, though I see them here.
In such a man, so gentle and subdued,
Withal so graceful in his gentleness,
A race illustrious for heroic deeds,
Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.
This pleasing fancy (cherished and upheld
By sundry recollections of such fall
From high to low, ascent from low to high,
As books record, and even the careless mind
Cannot but notice among men and things)
Went with me to the place of my repose.
Roused by the crowing cock at dawn of day,
I yet had risen too late to interchange
A morning salutation with my Host,




532


The Excursion


Gone forth already to the far-off seat
Of his day's work. 'Three dark mid-winter months
'Pass,' said the Matron, 'and I never see,
'Save when the sabbath brings its kind release,
'My Helpmate's face by light of day. He quits
'His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.
And, through Heaven's blessing, thus we gain the bread
'For which we pray; and for the wants provide
'Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.
'Companions have I many; many friends,
'Dependants, comforters-my wheel, my fire,
'All day the house-clock ticking in mine ear,
'The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood,
'And the wild birds that gather round my porch.
'The honest sheep-dog's countenance I read;
'With him can talk; nor blush to waste a word
'On creatures less intelligent and shrewd.
'And if the blustering wind that drives the clouds
'Care not for me, he lingers round my door,
'And makes me pastime when our tempers suit;'But, above all, my thoughts are my support,
'My comfort:-would that they were oftener fixed
'On what, for guidance in the way that leads
'To heaven, I know, by my Redeemer taught.'
The Matron ended-nor could I forbear
To exclaim-' 0 happy! yielding to the law
Of these privations, richer in the main!While thankless thousands are opprest and clogged
By ease and leisure; by the very wealth
And pride of opportunity made poor;
While tens of thousands falter in their path,
And sink, through utter want of cheering light;
For you the hours of labour do not flag;
For you each evening hath its shining star,
And every sabbath-day its golden sun.'"
"Yes! " said the Solitary with a smile
That seemed to break from an expanding heart,
"The untutored bird may found, and so construct,
And with such soft materials line, her nest
Fixed in the centre of a prickly brake,
That the thorns wound her not; they only guard.
Powers not unjustly likened to those gifts
Of happy instinct which the woodland bird
Shares with her species, nature's grace sometimes




The Excursion                  533
Upon the individual doth confer,
Among her higher creatures born and trained
To use of reason. And,- I own that, tired
Of the ostentatious world-a swelling stage
With empty actions and vain passions stuffed,
And from the private struggles of mankind
Hoping far less than I could wish to hope,
Far less than once I trusted and believedI love to hear of those, who, not contending
Nor summoned to contend for virtue's prize,
Miss not the humbler good at which they aim,
Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn
Into their contraries the petty plagues
And hindrances with which they stand beset.
In early youth, among my native hills,
I knew a Scottish Peasant who possessed
A few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground;
Masses of every shape and size, that lay
Scattered about under the mouldering walls
Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,
In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,
As if the moon had showered them down in spite.
But he repined not. Though the plough was scared
By these obstructions, ' round the shady stones
'A fertilising moisture,' said the Swain,
'Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews
'And damps, through all the droughty summer day
'From out their substance issuing, maintain
'Herbage that never fails; no grass springs up
'So green, so fresh, so plentiful, as mine! '
But thinly sown these natures; rare, at least,
The mutual aptitude of seed and soil
That yields such kindly product. He, whose bed
Perhaps yon loose sods cover, the poor Pensioner
*Brought yesterday from our sequestered dell
Here to lie down in lasting quiet, he,
If living now, could otherwise report
Of rustic loneliness: that grey-haired OrphanSo call him, for humanity to him
No parent was-feelingly could have told,
In life, in death, what solitude can breed
Of selfishness, and cruelty, and vice;
Or, if it breed not, hath not power to cure.
-But your compliance, Sir! -with our request




534             The Excursion
My words too long have hindered,"
Undeterred,
Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks,
In no ungracious opposition, given
To the confiding spirit of his own
Experienced faith, the reverend Pastor said,
Around him looking; " Where shall I begin?
Who shall be first selected from my flock
Gathered together in their peaceful fold?"
He paused-and having lifted up his eyes
To the.pure heaven, he cast them down again
Upon the earth beneath his feet; and spake:"To a mysteriously-united pair
This place is consecrate; to Death and Life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From their conjunction; consecrate to faith
In him who bled for man upon the cross;
Hallowed to revelation; and no less
To reason's mandates: and the hopes divine
Of pure imagination;-above all,
To charity, and love, that have provided,
Within these precincts, a capacious bed
And receptacle, open to the good
And evil, to the just and the unjust;
In which they find an equal resting-place:
Even as the multitude of kindred brooks
And streams, whose murmur fills this hollow vale,
'Whether their course be turbulent or smooth,
Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost
Within the bosom of yon crystal Lake,
And end their.journey in the same repose!
And blest are they who sleep; and we that know,
While in a spot like this we breathe and walk,
That all beneath us by the wings are covered
Of motherly humanity, outspread
And gathering all within their tender shade,
Through loth and slow to come! A battle-field,
In stillness left when slaughter is no more,
With this compared, makes a strange spectacle!
A dismal prospect yields the wild shore strewn
With wrecks, and trod by feet of young and old
Wandering about in miserable search
Of friends or kindred, whom the angry sea
Restores not to their prayer! Ah! who -ould think




The Excursion


535


That all the scattered subjects which compose
Earth's melancholy vision through the space
Of all her climes-these wretched, these depraved,
To virtue lost, insensible of peace,
From the delights of charity cut off,
To pity dead, the oppressor and the opprest;
Tyrants who utter the destroying word,
And slaves who will consent to be destroyedWere of one species with the sheltered few,
Who, with a dutiful and tender hand,
Lodged, in a dear appropriated spot,
This file of infants; some that never breathed
The vital air; others, which, though allowed
That privilege, did yet expire too soon,
Or with too brief a warning, to admit
Administration of the holy rite
That lovingly consigns the babe to the arms
Of Jesus, and his everlasting care.
These that in trembling hope are laid apart;
And the besprinkled nursling, unrequired
Till he begins to smile upon the breast
That feeds him; and the tottering little-one
Taken from air and sunshine when the rose
Of infancy first blooms upon his cheek;
The thinking, thoughtless, school-boy; the bold youth
Of soul impetuous, and the bashful maid
Smittenwhile all the promises of life
Are opening round her; those of middle age,
Cast down while confident in strength they stand,.
Like pillars fixed more firmly, as might seem,
And more secure, by very weight of all
That, for support, rests on them; 'the decayed
And burthensome; and lastly, that poor few
Whose light of reason is with age extinct;
The hopeful and the hopeless, first and last,
The earliest summoned and the longest sparedAre here deposited, with tribute paid
Various, but unto each some tribute paid
As if, amid these peaceful hills and groves,
Society were touched with kind concern,
And gentle " Nature grieved, that one should die;'
Or, if the change demanded no regret,
Observed the liberating stroke-and blessed.
And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?




536


The Excursion


Not from the naked hr-eart alone of Man
(Though claiming high distinction upon earth
As the sole spring and fountain-head of tears
His own peculiar utterance for distress
Or gladness)-No," the philosophic Priest
Continued, "'tis not in the vital seat
Of feeling to produce them, without aid
From the pure soul, the soul sublime and pure;
With her two faculties of eye and ear,
The one by which a creature, whom his sins
Have rendered prone, can upward look to heaven;
The other that empowers him to perceive
The voice of Deity, on height and plain,
Whispering those truths in stillness, which the WORD,
To the four quarters of the winds, proclaims.
Not without such assistance could the use
Of these benign observances prevail:
Thus are they born, thus fostered, thus maintained;
And by the care prospective of our wise
Forefathers, who, to guard against the shocks
The fluctuation and decay of things,
Embodied and established these high truths
In solemn institutions:-men convinced
That life is love and immortality,.The being one, and one the. element.
There lies -the channel, and original bed,
From the beginning, hollowed out and scooped
For Man's affections-else betrayed and lost,
And swallowed up 'mid deserts infinite!
This is the genuine course, the aim, and end
Of prescient Peason; all conclusions else
Are abject, vain, presumptuous, and perverse.
The faith partaking of those holy times,
Life, I repeat, is energy of love
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife, and tribulation; and ordained,
If so approved and sanctified, to pass,
Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy."
BOOK. SIXTH
THE CHURCHYARD AMONG- THE MOUNTAINS
ARGUMENT
Poet's Address to the; State and Church of England-The Pastor not
inferior to the ancient Worthies of the Church-He begins his Narratives with. an instance of unrequited Love-Anguish of mind subdued,




The Excursion                       537
and how-The lonely Miner-An instance of perseverance-Which
leads by contrast to an example of abused talents, irresolution, and
weakness-Solitary, applying this covertly to his own case, asks for an
instance of some Stranger, whose dispositions may have led him to end
his days here-Pastor, in answer, gives an account of the harmonising
influence of Solitude upon two men of opposite principles, who had
encountered agitations in public life-The rule by which Peace may be
obtained expressed, and where-Solitary hints at an overpowering
Fatality-Answer of the Pastor-What subjects he will exclude from
his Narratives-Conversation upon this-Instance of an unamiable
character, a Female, and why given-Contrasted with this, a meek
sufferer, from unguarded and betrayed love-Instance of heavier guilt,
and its consequences to the Offender-With this instance of a Marriage
Contract broken is contrasted one of a Widower, evidencing his faithful
affection towards his deceased wife by his care of their female
Children.
HAIL to the crown by Freedom shaped-to gird
An English Sovereign's brow! and to the throne
Whereon he sits! Whose deep foundations lie
In veneration and the people's love;
Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law.
-Hail to the State of England! And conjoin
With this a salutation as devout,
Made to the spiritual fabric of her Church;
Founded in truth; by blood of Martyrdom
Cemented; by the hands of Wisdom reared
In beauty of holiness, with ordered pomp,
Decent and unreproved. The voice, that greets
The majesty of both, shall pray for both;
That, mutually protected and sustained,
They may endure long as thee sea surrounds
This favoured Land, or sunshine warms her soil.
And 0, ye swelling hills, and spacious plains
Besprent from shore to shore with steeple-towers,
And spires whose 'silent finger points to heaven;'
Nor wanting, at wide intervals, the bulk
Of ancient minster lifted above the cloud
Of the dense air, which town or city breeds
To intercept the sun's glad beams-may ne'er
That true succession fail of English hearts,
Who, with ancestral feeling, can perceive
What in those holy structures ye possess
Of ornamental interest, and the charm
Of pious sentiment diffused afar,
And human charity, and social love.
-Thus never shall the indignities of time




538


The Excursion


Approach their reverend graces, unopposed;
Nor shall the elements be free to hurt
Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage
Of bigot zeal madly to overturn;
And, if the desolating hand of war
Spare them, they shall continue to bestow
Upon the thronged abodes of busy men
(Depraved, and ever prone to fill the mind
Exclusively with transitory things)
An air and mien of dignified pursuit;
Of sweet civility, on rustic wilds.
The Poet, fostering for his native land
Such hope, entreats that servants may abound
Of those pure altars worthy; ministers
Detached from pleasure, to the love of gain
Superior, insusceptible of pride,
And by ambitious longings undisturbed;
Men, whose delight is where their duty leads
Or fixes them; whose least distinguished day
Shines with some portion of that heavenly lustre
Which makes the sabbath lovely in the sight
Of blessed angels, pitying human cares.
-And, as on earth it is the doom of truth
To be perpetually attacked by foes
Open or covert, be that priesthood still,
For her defence, replenished with a band
Of strenuous champions, in scholastic arts
Thoroughly disciplined; nor (if in course
Of the revolving world's disturbances
Cause should recur, which righteous Heaven avert!
To meet such trial) from their spiritual sires.
Degenerate; who, constrained to wield the sword
Of disputation, shrunk not, though assailed
With hostile din, and combating in sight
Of angry umpires, partial and unjust;
And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire,
So to declare the conscience satisfied:
Nor for their bodies would accept release;
But, blessing God and praising him, bequeathed
With their last breath, from out the smouldering flame,
The faith which they by diligence had earned,
Or, through illuminating grace, received,
For their dear countrymen, and all mankind.
0 high example, constancy divine!




The Excursion


539


Even such a Man (inheriting the zeal
And from the sanctity of elder times
Not deviating,-a priest, the like of whom
If multiplied, and in their stations set,
Would o'er the bosom of a joyful land
Spread true religion and her genuine fruits)
Before me stood that day; on holy ground
Fraught with the relics of mortality,
Exalting tender themes, by just degrees
To lofty raised; and to the highest, last;
The head and mighty paramount of truths, —
Immortal life, in never-fading worlds,
For mortal creatures, conquered and secured.
That basis laid, those principles of faith
Announced, as a preparatory act
Of reverence done to the spirit of the place,
The Pastor cast his eyes upon the ground;
Not, as before, like one oppressed with awe
But with a mild and social cheerfulness;
Then to the Solitary turned, and spake.
"At morn or eve, in your retired domain,
Perchance you not unfrequently have marked
A Visitor-in quest of herbs and flowers;
Too delicate employ, as would appear,
For one, who, though of drooping mien, had yet
From nature's kindliness received a frame
Robust as ever rural labour bred."
The Solitary answered: "Such a Form
Full well I recollect. We often crossed
Each other's path; but, as the Intruder seemed
Fondly to prize the silence which he kept,
And I as willingly did cherish mine,
We met, and passed, like shadows. I have heard,
From my good Host, that being crazed in brain
By unrequited love, he scaled the rocks,
Dived into caves, and pierced the matted woods,
In hope to find some virtuous herb of power
To cure his malady!" i
The Vicar smiled,"Alas! before to-morrow's sun goes down
His habitation will be here: for him
That open grave is destined."
"Died he then




540


The Excursion


Of pain and grief?" the Solitary asked,
"Do not believe-it; never could that be!"
" He loved," the Vicar answered, "deeply loved,
Loved fondly, truly, fervently; and dared
At length to tell his love, but sued in vain:
Rejected, yea repelled; and, if with scorn
Upon the haughty maiden's brow, 'tis but
A high-prized plume which female Beauty wears
In wantonness of conquest, or puts on
To cheat the world, or from herself to hide
Humiliation, when no longer free.
That he could brook, and glory in;-but when
The tidings came that she whom he had wooed
Was wedded to another, and his heart
Was forced to rend away its only hope;
Then, Pity could have scarcely found on earth
An object worthier of regard than he,
Ini the transition of that bitter hour!
Lost was she, lost; nor could the Sufferer say
That in the act of preference he had been
Unjustly dealt with; but the Maid was gone!
Had vanished from his prospects and desires;
Not by translation to the heavenly choir
Who have put off their mortal spoils-ah no!
She lives another's wishes to complete,'Joy be their lot, and happiness,' he cried,
'His lot and hers, as misery must be mine!'
Such was that strong concussion; but the Man,
Who trembled, trunk and limbs, like some huge oak
By a fierce tempest shaken, soon resumed
The stedfast quiet natural to a mind
Of composition gentle and sedate,
And, in its movements, circumspect and slow.
To-books, and to the long-forsaken desk,
O'er which enchained by science he had loved
To bend, he stoutly re-addressed himself,
Resolved to quell his pain, and search for truth
With keener appetite (if that might be)
And closer industry. Of what ensued
Within the heart no outward sign appeared
Till a betraying sickliness was seen
To tinge his cheek; and through his frame it crept
With slow mutation unconcealable;
Such universal change as autumn makes




The Excursion


54 -

In the fair body of a leafy grove,
Discoloured, then divested.
'Tis affirmed
By poets skilled in nature's secret ways
That Love will not submit to be controlled
By mastery::-and the good Man lacked not friends
Who strove to instil this truth into his mind,
A mind in all heart-mysteries unversed.
'Go to the hills,' said one, 'remit a while
'This baneful diligence:-at early morn
'Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods;
'And, leaving it to others to foretell,
'By calculations sage, the ebb and flow
'Of tides, and when the moon will be eclipsed,
'Do you, for your own benefit, construct
'A calendar of flowers, plucked as they blow
'Where health abides, and cheerfulness, and peace.'
The attempt was made;-'tis needless to report.
How hopelessly; but innocence is strong,
And an entire simplicity of mind
A thing most sacred in the eye of Heaven;
That opens, for such sufferers, relief
Within the soul, fountains of grace divine;
And doth commend their weakness and disease
To Nature's care, assisted in her office
By all the elements that round her wait
To generate, to preserve, and to restore;
And by her beautiful array of forms
Shedding sweet influence from above; or pure
Delight exhaling from the ground they tread."
"Impute it not to impatience, if," exclaimed
The Wanderer, " I infer that he was healed
By perseverance in the course prescribed."
"You do not err: the powers, that had been lost
By slow degrees, were gradually regained;
The fluttering nerves composed; the beating heart
In rest established; and the jarring thoughts
To harmony restored.-But yon dark mould
Will cover him, in the fulness of his strength,
Hastily smitten by a fever's force;
Yet not with stroke so sudden as refused
Time to look back with tenderness on her
Whom he had loved in passion; and to send
Some farewell words-with one, but one, request;




542


The Excursion


That, from his dying hand, she would accept
Of his possessions that which most he prized;
A book, upon whose leaves some chosen plants,
By his own hand disposed with nicest care,
In undecaying beauty were preserved;
Mute register, to him, of time and place,
And various fluctuations in the breast,;
To her, a monument of faithful love
Conquered, and in tranquillity retained!
Close to his destined habitation, lies
One who achieved a humbler victory,
Though marvellous in its kind. A place there is
High in these mountains, that allured a band
Of keen adventurers to unite their pains
In search of precious ore: they tried, were foiledAnd all desisted, all, save him alone.
He, taking counsel of his own clear thoughts,
And trusting only to his own weak hands,
Urged unremittingly the stubborn work,
Unseconded, uncountenanced; then, as time
Passed on, while still his lonely efforts found
No recompense, derided; and at length,
By many pitied, as insane of mind;
By others dreaded as the luckless thrall
Of subterranean Spirits feeding hope
By various mockery of sight and sound;
Hope after hope, encouraged and destroyed.
But when the lord of seasons had matured
The fruits of earth through space of twice ten years;
The mountain's entrails offered to his view
And trembling grasp the long-deferred reward,
Not with more transport did Columbus greet
A world, his rich discovery! But our Swain,
A very hero till his point was gained,
Proved all-unable to support the weight
Of prosperous fortune. On the fields he looked
With an unsettled liberty of thought,
Wishes and endless schemes; by daylight walked
Giddy and restless; ever and anon
Quaffed in his gratitude immoderate cups;
And truly might be said to die of joy!
He vanished; but conspicuous to this day
The path remains that linked his cottage-door
To the mine's mouth; a long and slanting track,




The    Excursion               543
Upon the rugged mountain's stony side,
Worn by his daily visits to and from
The darksome centre of a constant hope.
This vestige, neither force of beating rain,
Nor the vicissitudes of frost and thaw
Shall cause to fade, till ages pass away;
And it is named, in memory of the event,
The PATH OF PERSEVERANCE."
"Thou from whom
Man has his strength," exclaimed the Wanderer, " oh!
Do thou direct it! To the virtuous grant
The penetrative eye which can perceive
In this blind world the guiding vein of hope;
That, like this- Labourer, such may dig their way,
'Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified;'
Grant to the wise his firmness of resolve!"
"That prayer were not superfluous," said the Priest,
"Amid the noblest relics, proudest dust,
That Westminster, for Britain's glory, holds
Within the bosom of her awful pile,
Ambitiously collected. Yet the sigh,
Which wafts that prayer to heaven, is due to all,
Wherever laid, who living fell below
Their virtue's humbler mark; a sigh of pain
If to the opposite extreme they sank.
How would you pity her who yonder rests;
Him, farther off; the pair, who here are laid;
But, above all, that mixture of earth's mould
Whom sight of this green hillock to my mind
Recalls!
He lived not till his locks were nipped
By seasonable frost of age; nor died
Before his temples, prematurely forced
To mix the manly brown with silver grey,
Gave obvious instance of the sad effect
Produced, when thoughtless Folly hath usurped
The natural crown that sage Experience wears
Gay, volatile, ingenious, quick to learn,
And prompt to exhibit all that he possessed
Or could perform; a zealous actor, hired
Into the troop of mirth, a soldier, sworn
Into the lists of giddy enterpriseSuch was he; yet, as if within his frame
Two several souls alternately had lodged,




544


The Excursion


Two sets of manners could the Youth put on;
And, fraught with antics as the Indian bird
That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage,
Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still
As the mute swan that floats adown the stream,
Or, on the waters of the unruffled lake,
Anchors her placid beauty. Not a leaf,
That flutters on the bough, lighter than he;
And not a flower, that droops in the green shade,
More winningly reserved! If ye enquire
How such consummate elegance was bred
Amid these wilds, this answer may suffice;
'Twas Nature's will; who sometimes undertakes,
For the reproof of human vanity,
Art to outstrip in her peculiar walk.
Hence, for this Favourite-lavishly endowed
With personal gifts, and bright instinctive wit,
While both, embellishing each other, stood
Yet farther recommended by the charm
Of fine demeanour, and by dance and song,
And skill in letters-every fancy shaped
Fair expectations; nor, when to the world's
Capacious field forth went the Adventurer, there
Were he and his attainments overlooked,
Or scantily rewarded; but all hopes,
Cherished for him, he suffered to depart,
Like blighted buds; or clouds that mimicked land
Before the sailor's eye; or diamond drops
That sparkling decked the morning grass; or aught
That was attractive, and hath ceased to be!
Yet, when this Prodigal returned, the rites
Of joyful greeting were on him bestowed,
Who, by humiliation undeterred,
Sought for his weariness a place of rest
Within his Father's gates.-Whence came he?-clothed
In tattered garb, from hovels where abides
Necessity, the stationary host
Of vagrant poverty; from rifted barns
Where no one'dwells but the wide-staring owl
And the owl's prey; from these bare haunts, to which
He had descended from the proud saloon,
He came, the ghost of beauty and of health,
The wreck of gaiety! But soon revived
In strength, in power refitted, he renewed




The Excursion
His suit to Fortune; and she smiled again
Upon a fickle Ingrate. Thrice he rose,
Thrice sank as willingly. For he-whose nerves
Were used to thrill with pleasure, while his voice
Softly accompanied the tuneful harp,
By the nice finger of fair ladies touched
In glittering halls-was able to derive
No less enjoyment from an abject choice.
Who happier for the moment-who more blithe
Than this fallen Spirit? in those dreary holds
His talents lending to exalt the freaks
Of merry-making beggars,-nor provoked
To laughter multiplied in louder peals
By his malicious wit; then, all enchained
With mute astonishment, themselves to see
In their own arts outdone, their fame eclipsed,'
As by the very presence of the Fiend
Who dictates and inspires illusive feats,
For knavish purposes! The city, too,
(With shame I speak it) to her guilty bowers
Allured him, sunk so low in self-respect
As there to linger, there to eat his bread;
Hired minstrel of voluptuous blandishment;
Charming the. air with skill of hand or voice,
Listen who would, be wrought upon who might,
Sincerely wretched hearts, or falsely gay.
-Such the too frequent tenor of his boast
In ears that relished the report;-but all
Was from his Parents happily concealed;
Who saw enoughfor blame and pitying love.
They also were permitted to receive
His last, repentant breath; and closed his eyes,
No more to open on that irksome world
Where he had long existed in the state
Of a young fowl beneath one mother hatched,
Though from another sprung, different in kind:
Where' he had lived, and could not cease to live,
Distracted in propensity; content
With neither element of good or ill;
And yet in both rejoicing; man unblest;
Of contradictions infinite the slave,
Till his deliverance, when Mercy made him
One with himself, and one with them that sleep."
"'Tis strange," observed the Solitary, "strange
It seems, and scarcely less than pitiful,


545


T




546


Theie Excursion


That in a land where charity provides
For all that cam.no longer feed themselves,
A mman like this should choose to bring his shame
To the parental door; and with his:sighs
Infect the air which he had freely breathed
In happy infancy.. He could not pine,
Through lack of converse; no-he.must have found
Abundant exercise for thought and speech,:
In his idividual being, self-reviewed,
Self-catechised, se-punished.- Some there are
Who, drawing near their final home, and much
And daily- longing thait the:-same were reached,
Would rather shun -tan:e seek the fellowship -
Of kindred mould.-Such haply here are laid?"
" Yes," said the Priest, ";the Genius of our.illsWho seems, by these stupendous barriers cast;
Round his domain, desirous not alone
To keep his own, but also to excludeAll other progenyy-doth sometimes liuire,;
Even by his studied depth of privacy,.
The unhappy alien hoping to obtain
Concealment, or iseduced by wish to find,
In place from outward miolestation free,
Helps to internal ease. Of many such
Could I discourse; but as their stay was brief,
So their departure only left:behind
Fancies, and loose: conjectures. Other trace.
Survives, for worthy mention, of a pair.
Who,,from the pressure of their several fates,
Meeting as strangers, in a petty town.
Whose blue roofso ornament a distant reach
Of this far-winding vale, remained as friends
True to their choice; 'and gave their bones in trust
To this loved cemetery, here to lodge  /;.,
With unescutcheoned privacy interred.
Far from the family vault.-A Chieftain one
By right of birtha, within whose spotless- breast.
The fire of ancient Caledonia burned:
He, with the;foremost whose impatience hailed,
The Stuart, landing.to resume, by force
Of arms, the crown which bigotry had lost,
Aroused his clan; and, fighting at their head,
With his brave sword endeavoured to prevent,
Culloden's 'fatal overthrow. -Escaped




The Excursion


547


From thati disastrous rout, to foreigin shores.
He fled; and when the lenient hand of time:
Those troubles had appeased, he sought and gained,
For his obscured condition, an obscure
Retreat, within, this nook of English ground.
The other, born in Britain's southern tract,
Had fixed his milder loyalty, and placed-6
His gentler.sentrtiameats of love.and hate,.;
There, where they placed them who in conscience prized
The -new succession, as a line of kings
Whose. oath had virtue to protect the land
Against the dire assaults of papacy
And arbitrary rule. But launch thy bark
On the distempered flood of public life,
And cause for most rare triumph will be thine
If, spite of keenest eye and steadiest hand,
The.stream, that bears thee forward, prove tiot, soon
Or late, a perilous master. He-who oft,
Beneath the battlements and stately trees
That round his mansion cast a sober gloom,
Had moralised on this, and other truths
Of kindred import, pleased and satisfied —
Was forced to vent his wisdom with a sigh.
Heaved from the heart in fortune's bitterness, - i,:
When he had crushed a plentiful estate
By ruinous ~contest, to obtain a seat
In Britain's senate. Fruitless was the attempt:
And while the uproar of that desperate strife
Continued yet to vibrate on his ear,;
The vanquished Whig, under a;borrowed name.,
(For the mere sound and echo of his own..'
Haunted him with sensations of disgust -
That he was:glad to lose) slunk from the woord' io
To the deep shade of those untravelled — Witld
In which the Scottish Laird had long possessed-.
' An undisturbed abode... Here, then, they met,: '.
Two doughty champions; flamirng Jacobite,
And sullen Hanoverian! You might think -,;
That losses and vexations, less severe.:  -:Than those which they had severally sustained, '.
Would have inclined each to abate his zeal.- i
For, his ungrateful; cause; no,-I have heard,.'
My reverend Father tell that, 'mid the cl o; -;.
Of that small. town,encountering thus,: they filled,'




548              The Excursion
Daily, its bowling-green with harmless strife;.
Plagued with uncharitable thoughts the church;.'And vexed the market-place. But in the breasts'
Of these opponents gradually was wrought,
With little change of general sentiment,
Such leaning towards each other, that their days
By choice were spent in constant fellowship;
And if, at times, they fretted with the yoke,
Those very bickerings made them love it more.
A favourite' boundary to their lengthened walks
This Churchyard was. And, whether they had come
Treading their path in sympathy and linked
In social converse, or by some short space
Discreetly parted to preserve the peace,
One spirit seldom failed to extend its sway
Over both minds, when they awhile had marked
The visible quiet of this holy ground,
And breathed its soothing air:-the spirit of hope
And saintly magnanimity'; that-spurning
The field of selfish difference and dispute,
And every care.which transitory things,
Earth and the kingdoms of the earth, createDoth, by a rapture of forgetfulness,
Preclude forgiveness, from the praise debarred,
Which else the Christian virtue might have claimed.
There live who yet remember here to have seen
Their courtly figures, seated on the stump
Of an old yew, their favourite resting-place.
But as the remnant: of the long-lived tree
Was disappearing by a swift decay,
They, with joint care, determined to erect,
Upon its site, a dial, that might stand
For public use preserved, and thus survive
As their own private monument: for this
Was the particular spot, in which they wished
(And Heaven was pleased to accomplish the desire)
That, undivided, their remains should lie.
So, where the mouldered tree had stood, was raised
Yon structure, framing, with the ascent of'steps
That tot the decorated pillar lead,
A work:of art more sumptuous than might seem
To suit this place; yet built in no proud scorn
Of rustic homeliness; they only aimed
To ensure for it respectful guardianship.




The Excursion                   549
Around the margin of the plate, whereon  *
The shadow falls to note the stealthy hours,
Winds an inscriptive legend."-At these words '-:
Thither we turned; and gathered, as we read,.:::
The appropriate sense, in Latin numbers couched:
'Time flies; it is his melancholy task,
To bring, and bear away, delusive hopes,
And re-produce the troubles he destroys.
But, while his blindness thus is occupied,
Discerning Mortal! do thou serve the will -
Of Time's eternal Master, and that peace,  -
Which the world wants, shall be for thee confirmed I'
"Smooth verse, inspired by no unlettered; Muse,"
Exclaimed the Sceptic, "and the strain of thought
Accords with nature's language;-the soft voice
Of yon white torrent falling down the rocks
Speaks, less distinctly, to the same effect.
If, then, their blended influence be not lost
Upon our hearts, not wholly lost, I grant,
Even upon mine, the more are we required
To feel for those among our fellow-men,
Who, offering no obeisance to the world,
Are yet made desperate by 'too quick a sense:
Of constant infelicity,' cut off
From peace like exiles on some barren rock,
Their life's appointed prison; not more free
Than sentinels, between two armies, set,
With nothing better, in the chill night air,
Than their own thoughts to comfort them. Say why
That ancient story of Prometheus chained
To the bare rock, on frozen Caucasus;
The vulture, the inexhaustible repast
Drawn from his vitals? Say what meant the woes
By Tantalus entailed upon his race, -
And the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes?
Fictions in form, but in their substance truths,3
Tremendous truths! familiar to the men.
Of long-past times, nor obsolete in ours.
Exchange the shepherd's frock of native grey:
For robes with regal purple tinged; convert..
The crook into a sceptre; give the pomp
Of circumstance; and here the tragic Muse
Shall find apt subjects for her highest art...
Amid the groves, under the shadowy hills,




550


The- Excursion


The generations are prepared-; tfhe pangs,  - '
The internal; pangs, are; ready; the dread strife
Of poor humanity's afflicted will.;Struggling in vain with ruthless: destiny..'
-" Though," said the Priest in answer, these be terms
Which a divine philosophy rejects, '
We, whose'established4 and unfailing trust
Is in controlling Providence, admit
That, through all stations, human life abounds
With mysteries;-for, if Faith were left untried,
How could the might, that lurks within hPer,;thein
'Be shown? her glorious excellence-'that ran hks'Among the first of Powers and Virtues-..propve?
Our system is not fashioned to preclude:.
That sympathy which you for others ask;
And I could tell, not travelling for my theme
Beyond these humble graves, of grievous crimes.
And strange disasters; but I pass them by,:;
Loth to disturb what Heaven hath hushed in peace.
-Still less, far less, am I iclined to treat
Of Man degraded in his Maker's sight  ':t^
By the deformities of brutish vice:  '
For, in such, portraits, though a vulgar facet
And a coarse outside of repulsive life.;
And unaffecting manners migh.t at once.
Be re6ognised by all-' 'Ah. do not think',",:
The Wanderer somewhat eagerly exclaimed,;
"Wish could be ours that you, fbr such poor gan,
*:(Gan shall I call, it?-gafn of what?-for whom?)
'hould breathe a word tending to violate  '
Your own pure.spirit  Not a st6p we look fo
In slight of that forbearance and reserve
Which common human-Tiearted'ness inrspires,
And mortal ignorance and frailty claim,.
Uporv this sacred ground, if nowhere 'eise."l,  ':
",True/'.said: the Solitary~ rb1e fit.fr '?. '..: ' i i.
From us to infriige gthk 'w si of.charityL':::
Let judgment here in mercy- be -p.pratns:ced;t 'This,s.ef-resp.ectirgN. iur e.pam pts and::thi
Wisdomn. enjoians bat: if the thing, ws.e: -w  - iBe genuine knawledge, beari wte tse-ihnm ini.i nd '
How, from his lofty -thrmne', the! sunm can fling', '"i,'
Colours as bright on- ex.halations bredi:- i:t
By weedy pocol or pestienti il swampy;  ^ -




The -Excursion


55i- *


As by the rivulet sparkling where it.runs,':
Or the pellucid lake."
Small risk," said I,
"Of such illusion do we here incur';
Temptation here is-none to exceed the truth;
No evidence appears that they who rest
Within this ground, were. covetous of praise,
Or of remembrance even,. deserved or not.
Green is the Churchyard, beautiful and green,
Ridge rising gently by the side of ridge,
A heaving surface, almost wholly free
From interruption of sepulchral stones,
And mantled o'er with aboriginal turf
And everlasting flowers. These Dalesmen trust
The lingering gleam of their departed lives
To oral record, and the silent heart;
Depositories faithful and more kind:
Than fondest epitaph: for, if those fail,
What boots the sculptured tomb? And who can blame,
Who rather would not envy, men that feel
This mutual confidence; if, from such source,
The practice flow,.-if thence, or from a deep
And general humility in death?.
Nor should I much condemn it, if it spring
From disregard of time's destructive power,
As only capable to prey on things
Of earth, and human nature's mortal part.':
Yet-in less simple districts, where we see
Stone lift its forehead emulous of stone-:;?
In courting notice; and the ground all.paved -
With commendations of departed worth;
Reading1 where'er we turn, of innocent lives,
Of each domestic charity fulfilled,.
And sufferings meekly borne-I,, for: my part,
Though with the silence pleased that, here prevails,
Among those fair recitals also range,
Soothed by the natural spirit which they breathe.
And, in the centre of a world whose soil.
Is rank with all unkindness, compassed round
With such memorials, I haye sometimes felt,
It was no6 momentary happiness;:'To have one Enclosure where the voice that speaks
In envy or detraction is not heard;
Which malice- may not enter; where: the traces '




. 552


The Excursion


Of evil inclinations are unknown;..
Where love and pity tenderly unite
With resignation; and no jarring tone
Intrudes, the peaceful concert to disturb
Of amity and gratitude."
"Thus sanctioned,"
The Pastor said, " I willingly confine
My narratives to subjects that excite
Feelings with these accordant; love, esteem,
And admiration; lifting up a veil,
A sunbeam introducing among hearts
Retired and covert; so that ye shall have.
Clear images before your gladdened eyes
Of nature's unambitious underwood,
And flowers that prosper in.the shade. And when
I speak of such among my flock as swerved
Or fell, those only shall be singled out
Upon whose lapse, or error, something more
Than brotherly forgiveness may attend;
To such will we restrict our. notice, else
Better my tongue were mute.
And yet there are,
I feel, good reasons why we should not leave
Wholly untraced a more forbidding way.
For, strength to persevere and to support,
And energy to conquer and repel —
These elements of virtue, that declare,.
The native grandeur of the human soulAre oft-times not unprofitably shown:
In the perverseness of a selfish course:
Truth every day exemplified, no less.
In the grey cottage by the murmuring stream
Than in fantastic conqueror's roving camp,
Or 'mid the factious senate, unappalled
Whoever may sink, or rise-to sink again,
As merciless proscription ebbs and flows.
There," said the' Vicar, pointing as he spake,
"A woman rests in peace; surpassed by few
In power of mind, and eloquent discourse.
Tall was her stature; her complexion dark
And saturnine; her head not raised to hold
Converse with heaven, nor yet deprest towards earth,
But in projection carried, as she walked
For ever musing.- Sunken were her eyes;




The Excursion                  553
Wrinkled and furrowed with habitual thought
Was her broad forehead; like the brow of one
Whose visual nerve shrinks from a painful glare
Of overpowering light.-While yet a child,
She, 'mid the humble flowerets of the vale,
Towered like the imperial thistle, not unfurnished
With its appropriate grace, yet rather seeking
To be admired, than coveted and loved.
Even at that age she ruled, a sovereign queen,
Over her comrades; else their simple sports,
Wanting all relish for her strenuous mind,
Had crossed her only to be shunned with scorn.
-Oh! pang of sorrowful regret for those
Whom, in their youth, sweet study has enthralled,
That they have lived for harsher servitude,
Whether in soul, in body, or estate!:.
Such doom was hers; yet nothing could subdue;
Her keen desire of knowledge, nor efface.
Those brighter images by books imprest
Upon her memory, faithfully as stars
That occupy their' places, and, though oft
Hidden by clouds, and oft bedimmed by haze,.
Are not to be extinguished, nor impaired.
Two passions, both degenerate, for they both
Began in honour, gradually obtained
Rule over her, and vexed her daily life;
An unremitting, avaricious thrift;
And a strange thraldom of maternal love,
That held her spirit, in its own despite,
Bound-by vexation, and regret, and scorn,
Constrained forgiveness, and relenting vows,
And tears, in pride suppressed, in shame concealedTo a poor dissolute Son, her only child.
-Her wedded days had opened with mishap,
Whence dire dependence. What could she perform
To shake the burthen off? Ah  there was felt,
Indignantly, the weakness of her sex.
She mused, resolved, adhered to her resolve;:
The hand grew slack in alms-giving, the heart
Closed by degrees to charity; heaven's blessing
Not seeking from that source, she placed her trust
In ceaseless pains-and strictest parsimony.
Which sternly hoarded all that could be spared,
From each day's need, out of each day's least gain.
T 2




554              The Excursion
Thusg ll Was re-stabliilshed, and a pile
Congtucted, that tffieed fot every end,
Save the coeemtemtnnt of the builder's mind;
A mind bi /fattue indisposed to aught
So placid, So inactivey as content;
A riimd iytoletant of lasting peace,
And cherishinrg the pang her heart deplored,
Dread life of conflict f which I oft comfpared
To the agitationi of a brook that runs
Down a rocky mountain, buried now and toSt
In silent po0s, now ii, stroig eddies chained?
But: nivet to be chatmed to gen tleness:
Its best attaitinerit fits of such repose
As timid eyes mIight shrink from fathoming,'
A sudden illlre's seized her in the strength
Of lifers autumnal season.-Shall I tell
How on her bed of death the Matron lay,
To Providence subtissive, so she' thought;
But fretted, vexed, and, wrought upon,' almost
To anger, by the malady that griped
Her prostrate frame with unrelaxing powery
As the fierce eagle fastens on the lamb?
She prayed, she moaned;-her husband's sister watched
Her dreary pillow, waited on her needs;
And yet the Very sound of that kind foot
Was anguish to her ears f 'And must she rule,'
This was the death-doomed Wornan heard to say
In bitternes, and must she tule and reign,
'Sole Mistress of this house% when I am gone?
'Tend, what I tehded, calling it her own!'
Enough    I fear, too mtuch.-One vernal evening,
While she was yet in prime 6f health and strength,
I well remember, while I passed her door
Alone, with loitering step, and upward eye
Ttirned towards the planet Jupiter that hung
Above the centre df the Vale, a voice '
Roused me, her voicee it said? 'That glorious star
'In its tlutroubled element will shine
'As now it shines, when we are laid in earth
'Aid safe from all our sorrows.', With a sigh
She spake, yet, I believe, not ursustained
By faith int glory that shall far transcend
Aught by these perishable heavens disclosed
To sight of mind. Nor less thrn Care divine




The Excursion


555


Is divine mercy. She, who had rebelled,:
Was into meekness softened and subdued;
Did, after trials not in vain prolonged,
With resignation sink into the grave;
And her uncharitable acts, I trust,
And harsh unkindnesses are all forgiven,
Tho', in this Vale, remembered with deep awe."
THE Vicar paused; and toward a seat advanced,
A long stone-seat, fixed in the Churchyard wall;
Part shaded by cool sycamore, and part
Offering a sunny resting-place to them
Who seek the House of worship, while the bells
Yet ring with all their voices, or before
The last hath ceased its solitary knoll.
Beneath the shade we all sate down; and there,
His office,;uninvited, he resumed.
"As on a sunny bank, a tender lamb'
Lurks in -safe shelter from the winds of March,
Screened by its parent, so that little mound
Lies guarded by its neighbour; the small heap
Speaks for itself; an Infant there doth rest;
The sheltering hillock is the Mother's grave.
If mild discourse, and manners that conferred
A natural dignity on humblest rank;
If gladsome spirits, and benignant looks,
That for a face not beautiful did more
Than beauty for the fairest face can do;
And if religious tenderness of heart,
Grieving for sin, and penitential tears
Shed when the- clouds had gathered and distained
The spotless ether of a maiden life;
If these may make a hallowed spot off earth'
More holy in the sight of God or Mar;
Then, o'er that mould, a sanctity shall brood'
Till the stars sicken at the day of doom.
Ah t what a warning for athoughtless man,
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed; render-back:an echo:
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
There, by her innocent Baby's precious grave,
And on the very turf that. roofs her own,




556.


The Excursion


The Mother oft was seen to stand, or kneel
In the broad day, a weeping Magdalene.
Now she is not; the swelling turf reports
Of the fresh shower, but of poor Ellen's tears
Is silent; nor is any vestige left
Of the path worn by mournful tread of her
Who, at her heart's light bidding, once had moved
In virgin fearlessness, with step that seemed
Caught from the pressure of elastic turf
Upon the mountains gemmed with morning dew,
In the prime hour of sweetest scents and airs.
-Serious and thoughtful was her mind; and yet,
By reconcilement exquisite and rare,
The form, port, motions, of this Cottage-girl
Were such as might have quickened and inspired
A Titian's hand, addrest to picture forth
Oread or Dryad glancing through the shade
What time the hunter's earliest horn is heard
Startling the golden hills.
A wide-spread elmStands in our valley, named THE JOYFUL TREE;
From dateless usage which our peasants hold
Of giving welcome to the first of May
By dances round its trunk.-And if the sky
Permit, like honours, dance and song, are paid
To the Twelfth Night, beneath the frosty stars
Or the clear moon. The queen of these gay sports,
If not in beauty yet in sprightly air,
Was hapless Ellen.-No one touched the ground
So deftly, and the nicest maiden's locks
Less gracefully were braided;-but this praise,
Methinks, would better suit another place.
She loved, and fondly deemed herself beloved.
-The road is dim, the current unperceived,
The weakness painful and most pitiful,
By which a virtuous woman, in pure youth,
May be delivered to distress and shame.
Such fate was hers.-The last time Ellen danced,
Among her equals, round THE JOYFUL TREE,
She bore a secret burthen; and full soon
Was left to tremble for a breaking vow,Then, to bewail a sternly-broken vow,
Alone, within her widowed Mother's house.
It was the season of unfolding leaves,




The Excursion


557


Of days advancing toward their utmost length,
And small birds singing happily to mates
Happy as they. With spirit-saddening power
Winds pipe through fading woods; but those blithe notes
Strike the deserted to the heart; I speak
Of what I know, and what we feel within.
-Beside the cottage in which Ellen dwelt
Stands a tall ash-tree; to whose topmost twig
A thrush resorts, and annually chants,
At morn and evening from that naked perch,
While all the undergrove is thick with leaves,
A time-beguiling ditty, for delight
Of his fond partner, silent in the nest.
-' Ah why,' said Ellen, sighing to herself,
'Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge;
'And nature that is kind in woman's breast,
'And reason that in man is wise and good,
'And fear of him who is a righteous judge;
'Why do not these prevail for human life,
'To keep two hearts together, that began
'Their spring-time with one love, and that have need
'Of mutual pity and forgiveness, sweet
'To grant, or be received; while that poor bird'0 come and hear him! Thou who hast to me
'Been faithless, hear him, though a lowly creature,
'One of God's simple children that yet know not
'The universal Parent, how he sings
'As if he wished the firmament of heaven
'Should listen, and give back to him the voice
'Of his triumphant constancy and love;
'The proclamation that'he makes, how far
'His darkness doth transcend our fickle light!'
Such was the tender passage, not by me
Repeated without loss of simple phrase,
Which I perused, even as the words had been
Committed by forsaken Ellen's hand
To the blank margin of a Valentine,
Bedropped with tears. 'Twill please you to be told
That, studiously withdrawing from the eye
Of all companionship, the Sufferer yet
In lonely reading found a meek resource:
How thankful for the warmth of summer days,
When she could slip into the cottage-barn,
And find a secret oratory there;
t




558


The Excursion


Or, in the garden, under friendly veil
Of their long twilight, pore upon her book
By the last lingering help of the open sky
Until dark night dismissed her to her bed!t
Thus did a waking fancy sometimes lose
The unconquerable pang of despised love.
A kindlier passion opened on her soul
When that poor Child was born. Upon its face.
She gazed as on a pure and spotless gift
Of unexpected promise, where a grief
Or dread was all that had been thought of,- joy.:
Far livelier than bewildered traveller feels,.:, ',
Amid a perilous waste that all night long
Hath harassed him toiling through fearful storm,
When he beholds the first pale speck serene
Of day-spring, in the gloomy east, revealed,
And greets it with thanksgiving. "Till this hour,'
Thus, in her Mother's hearing Ellen spake,
'There was a stony region in my heart;
'But He, at whose command the parched rock
'Was smitten, and poured forth a quenching stream,
'Hath softened that obduracy, 4nd made
'Unlooked-for gladness in the desert place,
'To save the perishing;; and, henceforth, I breathe
'The air with cheerful spirit, for thy sake,
'My infant! and for that good Mother dear,
'Who bore me; and hath:prayed for me in vain; —;
'Yet not in vain; it shall not be in vain.'
She spake, nor was the assurance unfulfilled;
And if heart-rending thoughts wQuldoft return,
They stayed not long.-The blameless Infant grew;
The Child whom Ellen and her Mother loved
They soon were proud of; tended it and nursed
A soothing comforter, although forlorn;
Like a poor singing-bird from distant lands;Or a choice shrub, which he, who passes by-.
With vacant mind, not seldom- may observe
Fair-flowering in a thinly-peopled house,
Whose window, somewhat sadly, it adorns.
Through four months' space the Infant drew its food '7'
From the maternal breast; then scruples rose;
Thoughts, which the rich are free from, came and crossed
The fond affection. She no more could bear
By her offence to lay a twofold weighit -




The, E xcu rsioxi55
On a kind parent willin g to fjorget"
Their slender means: iso, -to that p-a&etes caesa
Trusting herchild, -she left their commfnon) hoimoe,
And undertook with dutiful _ccintent
A Foster-~mother's!office.
"Tis, perchance,,
Unknown to you thaft in t~hese impe vale's
The natural fieeiirg -of equality
Is by dom estic service unim-paired;
Yet, though- such service be, with Vus, ren-o ed~
From -sen se of'degradation,' 1iothe less
The ung-entle -mind?can Iea-sil'y fird em eans
'To 'impose severe r eig raints and laws anJUSt,
Which hapless Ellen 1inow was -doomed -to ife~l:
For-(blinded b an uover-anxious 'dread - -
Of such excitementa  "nd '     thou -ght
As with her'office 'would rbu'i)accord)
'T;he paiv, - w-hose inCfant she'*&s -'was bound -t6 Aursi
Forbade her all comtantion 'with' Cher ow1n':'.Week after week, 'the mandate they enforced.
-So near-:! yet'not allowed, upon 'that 'sight
To' fixYher eyiesalas'! 'atwas bhard 'to wben
But worse affliction must 'be home-far  wse;
For 'tis Heave~ns iwill —14iha-t, After,,a d-iseas';ae
Begun and ended: iWhin: 'tthree &ayes"spraoe,
Her (child should die; -as Ellen now 'eexdlalme&
Her own ---deserted cOh ldV-A(O-nce, only nce,
She saw it in that mortal maladpyl;
And, on the burialbd-ky, coould scaro lfy tgahiif
missoi Ito gattend' 'tsobseqties.
She reached the 'houseo, Iantbf the fthler44 'tri;
And some one, as'tshe entered, having d h ann
To urge unthink-iotgy their prompt;d'eparwre,'''
'Nay,' 'said 'she, with commanding look, a spirit
Of anger never seen ib-n 'her-b-efore,
'Nay, ye 'must wait my itime'!' and 'dmnown she: sate,
And by the unclosed -'coffifn; keptI her 'eseat
Weeping and 'looldng, looking o n and weeping,
Upon the last 'sw-6eet ~slumfber 'f'her Child,
Until ot 'length -her soul was sati4fbild,.
You see the Infant~ s ~Grave and t9o'this spot,'
The -M&other, oft 'a's 'she-w.as 'sent abroad,"
On whatsoever errad,-.ur-ged hie~r- step's:
Hither she came; -here 'stood,!h an  s'omtitres ' kbult




560.5- q S.


The Excursion


In the broad day, a rueful Magdalene!
So call her; for not only she bewailed
A mother's loss, but mourned in bitterness
Her own transgression; penitent sincere
As ever raised to heaven a streaming eye?
-At length the parents of the foster-child,
Noting that in despite of their commands
She still renewed and could not but renew
Those visitations, ceased to send her forth;
Or, to the garden's narrow bounds, confined.
I failed not to remind them that they erred;
For holy Nature might not thus be crossed,
Thus wronged in woman's breast: in vain I pleadedBut the green stalk of Ellen's life was snapped,
And the flower drooped; as every eye could see,
It hung its head in mortal languishment.
-Aided by this appearance, I at length
Prevailed; and, from those bonds released, she went
Home to her mother's house.
The Youth was fled;
The rash betrayer could not face the shame
Or sorrow which his senseless guilt had caused;
And little would his presence,, or proof given
Of a relenting soul, have now availed;
For, like a shadow, he was passed away
From Ellen's thoughts; had perished to her mind
For all concerns of fear, or hope, or love,
Save only those which to their common shame,
And to his moral being appertained.:
Hope from that quarter would, I know, have brought
A heavenly: comfort; there she recognised
An unrelaxing bond, a mutual need;
There, and, as seemed, there only.
She had built,
Her fond maternal heart had built, a nest
In blindness all too near the river's edge;
That work a summer flood with hasty swell
Had swept away; -and now her Spirit longed
For its last flight to heaven's security.
-The bodily frame wasted from day to day;
Meanwhile, relinquishing all other cares,
Her mind'she strictly tutored to find peace
And pleasure in endurance. Much she thought,
And much she read; and brooded feelingly;Upon her own unworthiness. To me,




The Excursion


56I


As to a spiritual comforter and friend,
Her heart she opened; and no pains were spared
To mitigate, as gently as I could,
The sting of self-reproach, with healing words.
Meek Saint! through patience glorified on earth!
In whom, as by her lonely hearth she sate,
The ghastly face of cold decay put on
A sun-like beauty, and appeared divine!
May I not mention-that, within those walls,
In due observance of her pious wish,
The congregation joined with me in prayer
For her soul's good? Nor was that office vain.
-Much did she suffer: but, if any friend,
Beholding her condition, at the sight
Gave way to words of pity or complaint,
She stilled them with a prompt reproof, and said,
' He who afflicts me knows what:I can bear;
'And, when I fail, and can endure no more,
'Will mercifully take me to himself.'
So, through the cloud of death, her Spirit passed
Into that pure and unknown world of love
Where injury cannot come:-and here is laid
The mortal Body by her Infant's side."
The Vicar ceased; and downcast looks made known
That each had listened with his inmost heart.
For me, the emotion- scarcely was less strong
Or less benign than that which I had felt
When, seated near my venerable Friend,'
Under those shady elms, from him I heard
The story that retraced the slow decline
Of Margaret, sinking on the lonely heath
With the neglected house to which she clung.
-I noted that the Solitary's cheek
Confessed the power of nature.- Pleased though sad,
More pleased than sad, the grey-haired Wanderer sate;
Thanks to his pure imaginative soul
Capacious and serene; his blameless life,
His knowledge, wisdom, love of truth, and love
Of human kind! He was it who first broke
The pensive silence, saying:"Blest are they
Whose sorrow rather is to suffer wrong
Than to do wrong, albeit themselves have erred.
This tale gives proof that Heaven most gently deals




562


The Excursion


With such, in their affliction.-Ellenis fat e, '
Hex tender spirit,. and her contrite heart  s
Call to my mind dark hints which I have hedard1
Of one who died within this vale, by doom
Heavier, as his offence was heavier far. --
Where, Sir, I pray you, where are laid the b6nes
Of Wilfrid Armathwaite?'..   -
The Vifcar answered,
"In that green nook, close by the Churchyaird wall,
Beneath yon hawthorn, planted by myself  - if
In memory and- for warning, arid in sign  -
Of sweetness where -dire anguish had been known,
Of reconcilement after deep offence —
There doth he rest. No theme his fate supplies
For the smooth glozings 'of the indulgent world;
Nor need the windings of his devious icorute' -
Be here retraced;-enough that, by mishap
And venial error, robbed of competence,
And her obsequious shadow, peace of mind,
He craved a substitute in troubled joy::
Against his conscience rose in arms, and, bravlrig
Divine displeasure, broke the marriage-vow.
That which he had been weakenough to do; -
Was misery in remembrance; he was stung,
-,Stur-g by hbis inward thoughts, and by the smilte
Of wife' rid children stung to agony.:
Wretched at home, he gained no ipeace abroad;
Ranged through the:mountaiflss slept upon the earth,
Asked comfort of the opena airs ad:found;:un
No quiet in the darkness of the night,
No pleasure iin the beauty of the day.
His flock he slighted his paternal fields.: -
Became.a clog to him, whose spirit wished-:;
To fly-but whither! And this gracios-Churdh,"
That wears a look so full of peace andi hpe.And love, benignant mother of:the val, -;
How fair amid her brood of cottages!.  -- -
She was to hEim a sickness and reproac:h.;:';::
Much to the last remained unknown ' but thiis
Is sure, that through remorse and griefihe died;
Though pitied among men, absolved by God, ' i
He could:.not find forgiveness in himself;
Nor could endure the weight of his own, shame.:- i


Here restsr a Mother. But from her I:tutn:




The Excursion


563


And from her grave.-Behold-upon that ridge,
That, stretching boldly from the mountain side,
Carries into the centre of the vale
Its rocks and woods-the Cottage where she dwelt
And where yet dwells her faithful Partner, left
(Full eight years past) the solitary prop
Of many helpless Children. I begin
With words that might be prelude to a tale
Of sorrow and dejection; but I feel
No sadness, when I think of what mine eyes
See daily in that happy family.
-Bright garland form they for the pensive brow'
Of their undrooping Father's widowhood,
Those six fair Daughters, budding yet-not one,
Not one of all the band, a full-blown flower.
Deprest, and desolate of soul, as once
That Father was, and filled with anxious fear,
Now, by experience taught, he stands assured,`";;
That God, who takes away, yet takes not half
Of what he seems to take; or gives it back,
Not to our prayer, but far beyond bur prayer:;
He gives it-the boon produce of a soil
Which our endeavours have refused to till,
And hope hath never watered. The Abode,
Whose grateful owner can attest these truths,
Even were the object nearer to out sight,
Would seem in no distinction to surpass
The rudest habitations. Ye might think
That it had sprung self-raised from earth, or grown
Out of the living rock, to be adorned
By nature only; but, if thither led,
Ye would discover, then, a studious work
Of many fancies, prompting many hands.
Brought from the woods the honeysuckle twines
Around the porch, and seems, in that trim place,
A plant no longer wild; the cultured rose
There blossoms, strong in health, and will be soon
Roof-high; the wild pink crowns the garden-wall,
And with the flowers are intermingled stones
Sparry and bright, rough scatterings of the hills.
These ornaments, thiat:ae not with the year,
A hardy Girl continues to provide;
W:ho, mounting fearlessly the rocky heights,
Her Father's prompt attendant, does for him




564               The Excursion
All that. a boy could do, but with delight
More keen and prouder daring; yet hath she,
Within the garden, like the rest, a bed
For her own flowers and favourite herbs, a space,
By sacred charter, holden for her use.
-These, and whatever else the garden bears
Of fruit or flower, permission asked or not,
I freely gather; and my leisure draws
A not unfrequent pastime from the hum
Of bees around their range of sheltered hives
Busy in that enclosure; while the rill,
That sparkling thrids the rocks, attunes his voice
To the pure course of human life which there
Flows on.in solitude.  But, when the gloom
Of night is falling round my steps, then most
This Dwelling charms me; often I stop short,
(Who could refrain?) and feed by stealth my sight
With prospect of the company within,
Laid open through the blazing window:-there
I see the eldest Daughter at her wheel
Spinning amain, as if to overtake
The never-halting time; or, in her turn,
Teaching some Novice of the sisterhood
That skill in this or other household work,
Which, from her Father's honoured hand, herself,
While she was yet a little-one, had learned.
Mild Man! he is not gay, but they are gay;
And the whole house seems filled with gaiety.
-Thrice happy, then, the Mother may be deemed,
The Wife, from whose consolatory grave
I turned, that ye in mind might witness where,
And how, her Spirit yet survives on earth!."
BOOK SEVENTH
THE CHURCHYARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS-(continued)
ARGUMENT
Impression of these'-Narratives upon the Author's' mind-Pastor
invited to give account of certain Graves that lie apart-Clergyman and
his Family-Fortunate influence of change of situation-Activity in
extreme old'age-Another Clergyman, /a character of resolute VirtueLamentations over misdirected applause-Instance of- less exalted
excellence in a deaf man-Elevated character of a -blind -man-Reflection upon Blindness-Interrupted by a Peasant who passes-His
animal cheerfulness and careless vivacity-He occasions a diggression
on the fall of beautiful and interesting Trees —A female Infants Grave




The Excursion


565


-Joy at her Birth-Sorrdw at her Departure —A youthful PeasantHis patriotic enthusiasm and distinguished qualities-His untimely
death-Exultation of the Wanderer, as a patriot, in this PictureSolitary how affected-Monument of a Knight-Traditions concerning
him-Peroration of the Wanderer on the transitoriness of things and
the revolutions of society-Hints at his own past Calling-Thanks the
Pastor.
WHILE thus from theme to theme the Historian passed,
The words he uttered, and the scene that lay
Before our eyes, awakened in my mind
Vivid remembrance of those long-past hours;
When, in the hollow of some shadowy val:,
(What time the splendour of the setting sun
Lay beautiful on Snowdon's sovereign brow,
On Cader Idris, or huge Penmanmaur)
A wandering Youth, I listened with delight
To pastoral melody or warlike air,
Drawn from the chords of the ancient British harp
By some accomplished Master, while he sate
Amid the quiet of the green recess,
And there did inexhaustibly dispense
An interchange of soft or solemn tunes,
Tender or blithe; now, as the varying mood
Of his own spirit urged,-now, as a voice
From youth or maiden, or some honoured chief
Of his compatriot villagers (that hung
Around him, drinking in the impassioned notes
Of the time-hallowed minstrelsy) required
For their heart's ease or pleasure. Strains of power
Were they, to seize and occupy the sense;
But to a higher mark than song can reach
Rose this pure eloquence. And, when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left,
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory, images and precious thoughts,
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
" These grassy heaps lie amicably close,"
Said I, " like surges heaving in the wind
Along the surface of a mountain pool:
Xyhence comes it, then, that yonder we behold
Five graves, and only five, that rise together
'Unsociably sequestered, and encroaching
On the smooth playground of the village-school?"




566


The Excursion


The Vicar answered, —" No disdainful pride.
In them who resti beneath, nor any course
Of strange or tragic accident, hath helped;:.;'' To place those hillocks in that lonely guise.
-.,- '-. Once more look forth, and follow with your sight
The length of road that from yon mountain's base
Through bare enclosures stretches, 'till its line
- Is lost within a little tuft of trees;
Then, reappearing in a moment, quits::
The cultured fields; and up the heathy waste,
Mounts, as you see, in mazes serpentine,
Led towards an easy outlet of the vale.
That little shady spot, that sylvan tuft,..;.
By which the road is hidden, also hides:;..'
A cottage from our view; though I discern;
(Ye scarcely can) amid its sheltering trees,
The smokeless chimney-top.-.
All unembowered
And naked stood that lowly Parsonage.
(For such in truth it is, and appertains:
To a small Chapel in the vale beyond):.: i
When hither came its last.Inhabitant.
Rough and forbidding were the choicest roads
By which our northern wilds could then be crossed;
And'into most of these secludted vales
Was no access for wain, heavy or light,,.i.
So, at his dwelling-place the Priest arrived.,
With store of household goods, in panniers slung.On sturdy horses graced with jingling bells,
And on the back of more ignoble.beast;  'That, with like burthen of effects most prized- i
Or easiest carried, closed the motley train,:;:.
Young was I then, a schoolboy of eight years.. -;
But still, methinks, I see them as they passed -..'
In order, drawing toward their wished-for home..,'
-Rocked by-the motion of a trusty ass
Two ruddy children hung, a. well-poised freight,.
Each in his basket nodding drowsily;
Their bonnets,- -I: iremember,. wreathed. with flowers,
Which told it was the pleasant month of June.;.
And, close behind, the comely Matron rode,
A woman, of soft speech and gracious smile,.
And witha a lady's mien. —From far they.came,.
Even from-Northumbrian hills; yet their$.had: been.  A, merty journey, rich in pastime, cheered;::




The Excursion


567.


By music, pranik, and laughter-stirring. jest.;.
And freak put on, and arch word dropped-to swell
The cloud of fancy and uncouth surmise
That gatheted: round the slowly-moving train..
' Whence do they come? and with what errand charged?
'Belong they to the fortune-telling, tribe
'Who pitch their.tents; under. the greenwood tree?
'Or Strollers are they, furnished to enact
'Fair Rosamond, -and the Children of the Wood,
'And, by that whiskered tabby's aid, set forth
'The lucky venture of sage Whittington,
'When the next village hears the show announced
'By blast of trumpet.?' Plenteous was the growth
Of such conjectures- overheard, or seen
On many,a staring countenance portrayed
Of boor or burgher, as they marched along.
And more than once their steadiness of face
Was put to proof, and exercise supplied
To their inventive humour, by stern looks,
And questions in- authoritative tone,
From some staid guardian of the public peace,
Checking the sober steed on which he rodee
In his suspicious wisdom; oftener still,
By notice indirect;, or blunt demand
From traveller halting in his- own despite,,
A simple curiosity to ease:
Of which adventures, that beguiled and cheered
Their grave migration, the good pair would tell,
With undiminished glee, in -hoary age.
A Priest he was by function; but his course
From his youth up, and high as manhood's noon,
(The hour of life to which he then was brought)
Had been irregular, I might say, wild;      -
By bookls unsteadied, by his pastoral care
Too little checked.- An -active, ardent-mind;
A fancy pregnant with resource and scheme.;
To cheat the sadness of a rainy day;
Hands apt for all ingenious arts-and games;.
A generous spirit, and a body strong::
To cope with stoutest champions of the bowl-.
Had earned for him sure.welcome, and the rights.
Of a prized visitant, in -the jolly hall.
Of country 'squire; or at the statelier board
Of duke or earl, from scenes of courtly pomp




568             The Excursion
Withdrawn,-to while away the summer hours
In condescension among rural guests.
With these high comrades he had revelled long,
Frolicked industriously, a simple Clerk
By hopes of coming patronage beguiled
Till the heart sickened. So, each loftier aim
Abandoning and all his showy friends,
For a life's stay (slender it was, but sure)
He turned to this secluded chapelry;
That had been offered to his doubtful choice
By an unthought-of patron. Bleak and bare
They found the cottage, their allotted home;
Naked without, and rude within; a spot
With which the Cure not long had been endowed:
And far remote the chapel stood,-remote,
And, from his Dwelling, unapproachable,
Save through a gap high in the hills, an opening
Shadeless and shelterless, bydriving showers
Frequented, and beset with howling winds.
Yet cause was none, whate'er regret might hang
On his own mind, to quarrel with the choice
Or the necessity that fixed him here;
Apart from old temptations, and constrained
To punctual labour in his sacred charge.
See him a constant preacher to the poor!
And visiting, though not with saintly zeal,
Yet, when need was, with no reluctant will,
The sick in body, or distrest in mind;
And, by a salutary change, compelled
To rise from timely sleep, and meet the day
With no engagement, in his thoughts, more proud
Or splendid than his garden could afford,
His fields, or mountains by the heath-cock ranged
Or the wild brooks; from which he now returned
Contented to partake the quiet meal
Of his own board, where sate his gentle Mate
And three fair Children, plentifully fed
Though simply, from their little household farm;
Nor wanted timely treat of fish or fowl
By nature yielded to his practised hand;To help the small but certain comings-in
Of that spare benefice. Yet not the less
Theirs was a hospitable board, and theirs
A charitable door.




The Excursion


569


So days and years
Passed on;-the inside of that rugged house
Was trimmed and brightened by the Matron's care,
And gradually enriched with things of price,
Which might be lacked for use or ornament.
What, though no soft and costly sofa there
Insidiously stretched out its lazy length,
And no vain mirror glittered upon the walls,
Yet were the windows of the low abode
By shutters weather-fended, which at once
Repelled the storm and deadened its loud roar.
There snow-white curtains hung in decent folds;
Tough moss, and long-enduring mountain plants,
That creep along the ground with sinuous trail,
Were nicely braided; and composed.a work
Like Indian mats, that with appropriate grace
Lay at the threshold and the inner doors;
And a fair carpet, woven of homespun wool
But tinctured daintily with florid hues,
For seemliness and warmth, on festal days,
Covered the smooth blue slabs of mountain-stone
With which the parlour-floor, in simplest guise
Of pastoral homesteads, had been long inlaid.
Those pleasing works the Housewife's skill produced:
Meanwhile the unsedentary Master's hand
Was busier with his task-to rid, to plant,
To rear for food, for shelter, and delight;
A thriving covert! And when wishes, formed
In youth, and sanctioned by the riper mind,
Restored me to my native valley, here
To end my days; well pleased was I to see
The once-bare cottage, on the mountain-side,
Screened from assault of every bitter blast;
While the dark shadows of the summer leaves
Danced in the breeze, chequering its mossy roof.
Time, which had thus afforded willing help
To beautify with nature's fairest growths
This rustic tenement, had gently shed,
Upon its Master's frame, a wintry grace;
The comeliness of unenfeebled age.
But how could I say, gently? for he still
Retained a flashing eye, a burning palm,
A stirring foot, a head which beat at nights
Upon its pillow with a thousand schemes.




570


The Excursion


Few likings had he dropped, few pleasures lost;
Generous and charitable, prompt to serve;; '
And still his harsher passions kept their holdAnger and indignation.' Still he loved.
The sound of titled names, and talked in glee
Of long-past banquetings with high-born friends:
Then, from those lulling fits of vain delight
Uproused by recollected injury, railed
At their false ways disdainfully,-and oft
In bitterness, and with a threatening eye     '
Of fire, incensed beneath its hoary brow.
-Those transports, with staid looks of pure good-will,I
And with soft smile, his consort would reprove.
She, far behind him in the race of years,
Yet keeping her first mildness, was advanced  -
Far nearer, in the habit of her soul,
To that still region whither all are bound;
Him might we liken to the setting sun
As seen not seldom on soome gusty day,
Struggling and bold, and shining from the west
With an inconstant; and unmellowed light;
She was a soft attendant cloud, that hung '
As if with wish to veil the restless orb;  ' i, From which, it did itself imbibe a ray
Of pleasing lIstre; —But no more of this';. ':,,;,
I better love to sprinkle on the sod.: ' i,.
That now divides the pair, or rather say,.s...:
That still unites them, praises, like heaven's dew,-:r,
Without reserve descending uponr both.,-;
Our very. first in eminence of years.;;
This old Man stood, te patriarch ofthe Vale! -
And, to his unmolested mansion, death.:
Had never come, through: space of forty years;  -,::
Sparing both old and young in that abode.-;; i:::;
Suddenly then they disappeared; not twice: ii
Had summer scorched th; fields; noQt twie had falten,
On those high peaks, the first autumnal s.sow,: '-:
Before the greedy visiting was closed,:.  \::;.
And the long-privileged hpuse left empty-swept::
As by a plague. Yet no rapacious plague
Had been among theim; all was gentle deaths
One after one, with intervals of peace.::
A happy consummation'! an accord.':
Sweet, perfect, to -be wished fir i' save that here  -




The" Exc'ursi6on


571


Was something which to mortal sense might sound
Like harshness,-that the old grey-headed Sire, -';
The oldest, he was taken last; survived
When the meek Partner of his age, his Son,
His Daughter, and that late and high-prized gift,.:
His little smiling. Grandchild, were no more.  *
'All gone, all vanishdhe deprived and bare,
'How will he face the remnaint of his life?
'What will become of him?' we said, and mused
In sad conjectures-' Shall we meet him now
'Haunting with rod and line the craggy brooks?
'Or shall we overhear him, as we pass,
'Striving to entertain the lonely hours
' With music? ' (for he had not ceased to touch
The harp or viol which himself had framed,'
For their sweet purposes,, with perfect skill.)
'What titles will he keep? will he remain
Musician; gardener, builder, nmechanist,
'A planter, and a- rearer from the seed?;
'A man of hope and forward-looking mind
'Even tot the last! '- Such was he, unsubdued.
But Heaven was gracious;. yet- a little while,.And this $arvivor, with his cheerful throng  -
Of openiprojects, and his inward hoard -,  - i
Of unsunned griefs, too many. and too keen,::.'.
Was overcome by unexpected sleep,;  -;
In one blest moment. Like a shadow thrown.:Softly and lightly from a passing cloud,';
Death fell upon him,. while reclined he lay —.
For noontide, solace on the summer grass,
The warm lap of his mother earth.: and so,. -;:
Their lenient term of separation past,,:
That family (whose graves you there behold)
By yet a higher privilege once more  -
Were gathered to each other.".     -
'.;alm of mind
And silenee waited on these cldsing words;.
Until the Wanderer (whether moved by fear;?
Lest in those passages of life were some;.:
That might have touched the sick heart of his Friend
Too nearly, or intent to reinforce
His. own' firm spirit in degree: deprest
By tender sorrow for our mortal state)  --
Thus silence broke:-" Behold a thoughtless Man




572


The Excursion


From vice and premature decay preserved'
By useful habits, to a fitter soil
Transplanted ere too late.-The hermit, lodged
Amid the untrodden desert, tells his beads,
With each repeating its allotted prayer,
And thus divides and thus relieves the time;
Smooth task, with his compared, whose mind could string,
Not scantily, bright minutes on the thread
Of keen domestic anguish; and beguile
A solitude, unchosen, unprofessed;
Till gentlest death released him.
Far from us
Be the desire-too curiously to ask
How much of this is but the blind result
Of cordial spirits and vital temperament;,
And what to higher powers is justly due.
But you, Sir, know that in a neighbouring vale
A Priest abides before whose life such doubts
Fall to the ground; whose gifts of nature lie
Retired from notice, lost in attributes
Of reason, honourably effaced by debts
Which her poor treasure-house is content to owe,
And conquest over her dominion gained,
To which her frowardness must needs submit.
In this one Man is shown a temperance-proof
Against all trials; industry severe
And constant as the motion of the day;
Stern self-denial round him spread, with shade
That might be deemed forbidding, did not there
All generous feelings flourish and rejoice;
Forbearance, charity in deed and thought,
And resolution competent to take
Out of the bosom of simplicity
All that her holy customs recommend,
And the best ages of the world prescribe.
-Preaching, administering, in every work
Of his sublime vocation, in the walks
Of worldly intercourse between man and man,
And in his humble dwelling, he appears
A labourer, with moral virtue girt,
With spiritual graces, like a glory, crowned."
"Doubt can be none," the Pastor said, " for whom
This portraiture is sketched. The great, the good,
The well-beloved, the fortunate, the wise,



The Excursion


573


These titles emperors and chiefs have borne,
Honour assumed or given: and him, the WONDERFUL,
Our simple shepherds, speaking from the heart,
Deservedly have styled.-From his abode
In a dependent chapelry that lies
Behind yon hill, a poor and rugged wild,
Which in his soul he lovingly embraced,
And, having once espoused, would never quit;
Into its graveyard will ere long be borne
That lowly, great, good Man. A simple stone
May cover him  and by its help, perchance,
A century shall hear his name pronounced,
With images attendant on the sound;
Thjen, shall the slowly-gathering twilight close
In utter night; and of his course remain
No cognizable vestiges, no more
Than of this breath, which shapes itself in words
To speak of him, and instantly dissolves."
~.
The Pastor, pressed by thoughts which round his theme
Still lingered, after a brief pause, resumed;
"Noise is there not enough in doleful war,
But that the heaven-born poet must stand forth,
And lend the echoes of his sacred shell,
To multiply and aggravate the din?
Pangs are there not enough in hopeless loveAnd, in requited passion, all too much
Of turbulence, anxiety, and fearBut that the minstrel of the rural shade
Must tune his pipe, insidiously to nurse
The perturbation in the suffering breast,
And propagate its kind, far as he may?
-Ah who (and with such rapture as befits
The hallowed theme) will rise and celebrate
The good man's purposes and deeds; retrace
His struggles, his discomfitures deplore,
His triumphs hail, and glorify his end;
That-virtue, like the fumes and vapoury clouds
Through fancy's heat redounding in the brain,
And like the soft infections of the heart,
By charm of measured words may spread o'er field,
Hamlet, and town; and piety survive
Upon the lips of men in hall or bower;
Not for reproof, but high and warm delight,
And grave encouragement, by song inspired?




574


Th. e Excursi<on


-Vain thought! -but wherefore murmur or;repine?.
Them emnory of the. just survives in heav.en:,.'
And, without sorrow, will the ground receive.-.....
That venerable clay.:; Meanwhile the best:
Of what lies here confines us to degrees,.:
In excellence less difficult to reach,:
And milder worth: nor need we travel far-;::
From those to whom our last regards were paid,., r:
For such example..   - i, -,:.    A.lmost at the root; '
Of that tall pine, the shadow of Whose bare,;?
And slender stem, while here -I sit at,eve,  P:;:'
Oft stretches towards me, like -a long straight path,;;
Traced faintly in the greensward; there, beneath;'l
A plain blue stone,' a gentle Dalesman lJies,: -.
From whom, in early childhood, was withdrawn: -:;,
The precious gift of hearing. He grew up; ^ r;
From year to year:in loneliness of soul;;-: E: i
And this deep mountain-valley was to him
Soundtless, -with all its:streams. The bird of dawia i
Did never rouse this Cottager from -sleep!
With startling summons; not for his delight;
The vernal cuckoo shouted; not for him..:
Murmured the labouring bee. When stormy Win4l.: ':,
Were working the broad bosom of the lake:."
Into a thousand thousaind sparkling waves,
Rocking the trees, or driving cloud on cloud.  i '
Along the sharp edge of yon lofty crags,,:..
The agitated scene before his eye.:...
Was silent as a picture: evermore      i
Were all things silent, wheresoe'er he moved.
Yet, by the solace of;his, own pure, thoughts.
Upheld, he duteously pursued the round,.:
Of rural laboursi; the steep mountain-side:
Ascended, 'with his staff and faithful dog;,
The plough he guided, and the scythe-he swayed;:.
And the ripe corn before his sickle fell
Among the jocund reapers. For himself,:
All watchful and industrious as he was, -.:,;
He wrought not: neither field nor flock he owned;,;-.
No wish for wealth had place within his mind;,.;;.'
Nor husband's love, nor father's hope or care.;," '.';...;....,,,..  I.;  3 '. i
Though born a younger brother, need was non.
That from thefloor of his paternal home: h.; -,




The.Excursion
He should depart, to plant himself anew.
And when, mature in manhood, he beheld
His parents laid in earth, no loss ensued
Of rights to him; but he remained well pleased,
By the pure bond of independent love,
An inmate of a second family;
The fellow-labourer and friend of him
To whom the small inheritance had fallen.
-Nor deem that his mild presence was a weight
That pressed upon his brother's house; for books
Were ready comrades whom he could not tire;
'Of whose society the blameless Man
Was never satiate. Their familiar voice,
Even to old age, with unabated charm
Beguiled his leisure hours; refreshed his thoughts';
Beyond its natural elevation raised
His introverted spirit; and bestowed
Upon his life an outward dignity
Which all acknowledged., The dark winter night,
The stormy day, each had its own resource;
Song of the muses, sage historic tale,
Science severe, or word of holy Writ
Announcing immortality and joy
To the assembled spirits of just men
Made perfect, and from injury secure.
-Thus soothed at home, thus busy in the field,
To no perverse suspicion he gave way,
No languor, peevishness, nor vain complaint:
And they, who were about him, did not fail
In reverence, or in courtesy; they prized
His gentle manners: and his peaceful smiles,
The gleams of his slow-varying countenance,
Were met with answering sympathy and love.;.
At length, when sixty years and five were told:-:
A slow disease insensibly consumed;
The powers of nature: and a few shor-t steps  - -
Of friends and kindred bore him-from -his home -:
(Yon cottage shaded by the:woody crags)
To the profounder stillness of the grave.'
-Nor was his funeral denied the grace
Of many tears, virtuous and thoughtful grief;  i
Heart-sorrow rendered sweet by gratietude..:  i
And now that monumental stone preserves,.
His name, and unambitiously relates..


575




576


The Excursion


How long, and by what kindly outward aids,
And in what pure contentedness of mind,
The sad privation was by: him endured.
-And yon tall pine-tree, whose composing sound
Was wasted on the good Man's living ear,
Hath now its own peculiar sanctity;
And, at the touch of every wandering breeze,
Murmurs, not idly, o'er his peaceful grave.
Soul-cheering Light, most bountiful of things!
Guide of our way, mysterious comforter!
Whose sacred influence, spread through earth and heaven,
We all too thanklessly participate,
Thy gifts were utterly withheld from him
Whose place of rest is near yon ivied porch.
Yet, of the wild brooks ask if he complained;
Ask of the channelled rivers if they held
A safer, easier, more determined, course.
What terror doth it strike into the mind
To think of one, blind and alone, advancing
Straight toward some precipice's airy brink!
But, timely warned, -He would have stayed his steps,
Protected, say enlightened, by his ear;
And on the very edge of vacancy
Not more endangered than a man whose eye
Beholds the gulf beneath.-No floweret blooms
Throughout the lofty range of these rough hills,
Nor in the woods, that could from him conceal
Its birth-place; none whose figure did not live
Upon his touch. The bowels of the earth
Enriched with knowledge his industrious mind;
The ocean paid him tribute from the stores
Lodged in her bosom; and, by science led,
His genius mounted to the plains of heaven.
-Methinks I see him-how his eye-balls rolled,
Beneath his ample brow, in darkness paired,But each instinct with spirit; and the frame
Of the whole countenance alive with thought,
Fancy, and understanding; while the voice
Discoursed of natural or moral truth
With eloquence, and such authentic power,
That, in his presence, humbler knowledge stood
Abashed, and tender pity overawed."
"A noble-and, to unreflecting minds,:
A marvellous spectacle," the Wanderer said,




The Excursion


577


" Beings like these present! But proof abounds
Upon the earth that faculties, which seem
Extinguished, do not, therefore, cease to be.
And to the mind among her powers of sense
This transfer is permitted,-not alone
That the bereft their recompense may win;
But for remoter purposes of love
And charity; nor last nor least for this,
That to the imagination may be given
A type and shadow of an awful truth;
How, likewise, under sufferance divine,
Darkness is banished from the realms of death,
By man's imperishable spirit, quelled.
Unto the men who see not as we see
Futurity was thought, in ancient times,
To be laid open, and they prophesied.
And know we not that from the blind have flowed
The highest, holiest, raptures of the lyre;
And wisdom married to immortal verse?"
Among the humbler Worthies, at our feet
Lying insensible to human praise,
Love, or regret,-whose lineaments would next
Have been portrayed, I guess not; but it chanced
That, near the quiet churchyard where we sate,
A team of horses, with a ponderous freight
Pressing behind, adown a rugged slope,
Whose sharp descent confounded their array,
Came at that moment, ringing noisily.
"Here," said the Pastor, " do we muse, and mourn
The waste of death; and lo! the giant oak
Stretched on his bier -that massy timber wain;
Nor fail to note the Man who guides the team."
He was a peasant of the lowest class
Grey locks profusely round his temples hung
In clustering curls, like ivy, which the bite
Of winter cannot thin; the fresh air lodged
Within his cheek, as light within a cloud;
And he returned our greeting with a smile.
When he had passed, the Solitary spake;
"A Man he seems of cheerful yesterdays
And confident to-morrows; with a face
Not worldly-minded, for it bears too much
Of Nature's impress,-gaiety and health,
U



578


The Excursion


Freedom and hope; but keen, withal, and shrewd.
His gestures note,-and hark! his tones of voice
Are all vivacious as his mien and looks."
The Pastor answered: " You have read him well.
Year after year is added to his store
With silent increase: summers, winters-past,
Past or to come; yea, boldly might I say,
Ten summers and ten winters of a. space
That lies beyond life's ordinary bounds,
Upon his sprightly vigour cannot fix
The obligation of an anxious mind,
A pride in having, or a fear to lose;
Possessed like outskirts of some large domain,
By any one more thought of than by him
Who holds the land in fee, its careless lord!
Yet is the creature rational, endowed
With foresight; hears, too, every sabbath day,
The christian promise with attentive ear;
Nor will, I trust, the Majesty of Heaven
Reject the incense offered up by him,
Though of the kind which beasts and birds present
In grove or pasture; cheerfulness of soul,
From trepidation and repining free.
How many scrupulous worshippers fall down
Upon their knees, and daily homage pay
Less worthy, less religious even, than his!
This qualified respect, the old Man's due,
Is paid without reluctance; but in truth,"
(Said the good Vicar with a fond half-smile)
" I feel at times a motion of despite
Towards one, whose bold contrivances and skill,
As you have seen, bear such conspicuous part
In works of havoc; taking from these vales,
One after one, their proudest ornaments.
Full oft his doings leave me to deplore
Tall ash-tree, sown by winds, by vapours nursed,
In the dry crannies of the pendent rocks;
Light birch, aloft upon the horizon's edge,
A veil of glory for the ascending moon;
And oak whose roots by noontide dew were damped,
And on whose forehead inaccessible
The raven lodged in safety.-Many a ship
Launched into Morecamb-bay to him hath owed




The Excursion


5791


Her strong knee-timbers, and the mast that bears,
The loftiest of her pendants; He, from park
Or forest, fetched the enormous axle-tree
That whirls (how slow itself!) ten thousand spindles:
And the vast engine labouring in the mine,
Content with meaner prowess, must have lacked
The trunk and body of its marvellous strength,
If his undaunted enterprise had failed
Among the mountain coves.
Yon household fir,
A guardian planted to fence off the blast,,
But towering high the roof above, as if
Its humble destination were fotgot —
That sycanore, which annually holds
Within its shade, as in a stately tent
On all sides open to the fanning breeze,
A grave assemblage, seated while they shear
The fleece-encumbered flock-the JoyFUL ELM,
Around whose trunk the maidens dance in MayAnd the LORD'S OAK-would plead their several rights
In vain, if he were master of their fate;
His sentence to the axe would doom them all.
But, green in age and lusty as he is,
And promising to keep his hold on earth
Less, as might seem, in rivalship with men
Than with the forest's more enduring growth,
His own appointed hour will come at last;
And, like the haughty Spoilers of the world,
This keen Destroyer, in his turn, must fall.
Now from the living pass we once again:
From Age," the Priest continued, "turn your thoughts;
From Age, that often unlamented drops,
And mark that daisied hillock, three spans long t
-Seven lusty Sons sate daily round the board
Of Gold-rill side; and, when the hope had ceased.
Of other progeny, a Daughter then
Was given, the crowning bounty of the whole;
And so acknowledged with a tremulous joy;
Felt to the centre of that heavenly calm:;:
With which by nature every mother's soul.
Is stricken in the moment when her throes:  i
Are ended, and her ears have heard the cry
Which tells her that a living child is born




580


The Excursion


And she lies conscious, in a blissful rest,
That the dread storm is weathered by them both.
The Father-him at this unlooked-for gift
A bolder transport seizes. From the side
Of his bright hearth, and from his open door,
Day after day the gladness is diffused
To all that come, almost to all that pass;
Invited, summoned, to partake the cheer
Spread on the never-empty board, and drink
Health and good wishes to his new-born girl,
From cups replenished by his joyous hand.
-Those seven fair brothers variously were moved
Each by the thoughts best suited to his years:
But most of all and with most thankful mind
The hoary grandsire felt himself enriched;
A happiness that ebbed not, but remained
To fill the total measure of his soul!
-From the low tenement, his own abode,
Whither, as to a little private cell,
He had withdrawn from bustle, care, and noise,
To spend the sabbath of old age in peace,
Once every day he duteously repaired
To rock the cradle of the slumbering babe:
For in that female infant's name he heard
The silent name of his departed wife;
Heart-stirring music! hourly heard that name;
Full blest he was, 'Another Margaret Green,'
Oft did he say, 'was come to Gold-rill side.'
Oh! pang unthought of, as the precious boon
Itself had been unlooked-for; oh! dire stroke
Of desolating anguish for them all!
-Just as the Child could totter on the floor,
And, by some friendly finger's help upstayed,
Range round the garden walk, while she perchance
Was catching at some novelty of spring,:
Ground-flower, or glossy insect from its cell
Drawn by the sunshine-at that hopeful season
The winds of March, smiting insidiously,
Raised in the tender passage of the throat
Viewless obstruction; whence, all unforewarned,
The household lost their pride and soul's delight.
-But time hath power to soften all regrets,
And prayer and thought can bring to worst distress
Due resignation. Therefore, though some tears




The Excursion


58i


Fail not to spring from either Parent's eye
Oft as they hear of sorrow like their own,
Yet this departed Little-one, too long
The innocent troubler of their quiet, sleeps
In what may now be called a peaceful bed.
On a bright day-so calm and bright, it seemed
To us, with our sad spirits, heavenly-fairThese mountains echoed to an unknown sound;
A volley, thrice repeated o'er the Corse
Let down into the hollow of that grave,
Whose shelving sides are red with naked mould.
Ye rains of April, duly wet this earth!
Spare, burning sun of midsummer, these sods,
That they may knit together, and therewith
Our thoughts unite in kindred quietness!
Nor so the Valley shall forget her loss.
Dear Youth, by young and old alike beloved,
To me as precious as my own!-Green herbs
May creep (I wish that they would softly creep)
Over thy last abode, and we may pass
Reminded less imperiously of thee;The ridge itself may sink into the breast
Of earth, the great abyss, and be no more;
Yet shall not thy remembrance leave our hearts,
Thy image disappear!
The Mountain-ash
No eye can overlook, when 'mid a grove
Of yet unfaded trees she lifts her head
Decked with autumnal berries, that outshine
Spring's richest blossoms; and ye may have marked,
By a brook-side or solitary tarn,
How she her station doth adorn: the pool
Glows at her feet, and all the gloomy rocks
Are brightened round her. In his native vale
Such and so glorious did this Youth appear;
A sight that kindled pleasure in all hearts
By his ingenuous beauty, by the gleam
Of his fair eyes, by his capacious brow,
By all the graces with which nature's hand
Had lavishly arrayed him. As old bards
Tell in their idle songs of wandering gods,$
Pan or Apollo, veiled in human form:
Yet, like the sweet-breathed violet of the shade
Discovered in their own despite to sense




582


The Excursion


Of mortals (if such fables without blame
May find chance-mention on this sacred ground)
So, through a simple rustic garb's disguise,
And through the impediment of rural cares,
In him revealed a scholar's genius shone;
And so, not wholly hidden from men's sight,
In him the spirit of a hero walked
Our unpretending valley.-How the quoit
Whizzed from the Stripling's arm! If touched by him,
The inglorious foot-ball mounted to the pitch
Of the lark's flight,-or shaped a rainbow curve,
Aloft, in prospect of the shouting field!
The indefatigable fox had learned
To dread his perseverance in the chase.
With admiration would he lift his eyes
To the wide-ruling eagle, and his hand
Was loth to assault the majesty he loved:
Else had the strongest fastnesses proved weak
To guard the royal brood. The sailing glead,
The wheeling swallow, and the darting snipe;
The sportive sea-gull dancing with the waves,
And cautious water-fowl, from distant climes,
Fixed at their seat, the centre of the Mere;
Were subject to young Oswald's steady aim,
And lived by his forbearance.
From the coast:
Of France a;boastful Tyrant hurled his threats;
Our Country marked the preparation vast  -
Of hostile forces and she called-with voice
That filled her plains, that reached her utmost shores,
And in remotest vales was heard —to arms!
-Then, for the first time, here you might have seen
The shepherd's grey to martial scarlet changed,
That flashed uncouthly through the woods and fields.
Ten hardy Striplings, all in bright attire,
And graced with shining weapons, weekly marched,
From this lone valley, to a central spot
Where, in assemblage with the flower and choice
Of the surrounding district, they might learn -
The rudiments of war; ten —hardy, strong,
And valiant i but young Oswald, like a chief
And yet a modest comrade, led them forth
From their shy solitude, to face the world,
With a gay confidence and seemly pride;
Measuring the soil beneath their happy feet  -




The Excursion                  583
Like Youths released from labour, and yet bound
To most laborious service, though to them
A festival of unencumbered ease;
The inner spirit keeping holiday,
Like vernal ground to sabbath sunshine left.
Oft have I marked him, at some leisure hour,
Stretched on the grass, or seated in the shade,
Among his fellows, while an ample map
Before their eyes lay carefully outspread,
From which the gallant teacher would discourse,
Now pointing this way, and now that.-' Here flows,'
Thus would he say, 'the Rhine, that famous stream!
'Eastward, the Danube toward this inland sea,
'A mightier river, winds from realm to realm;
'And, like a serpent, shows his glittering back
'Bespotted-with innumerable isles:
'Here reigns the Russian, there the Turk; observe
'His capital city!' Thence, along a tract
Of livelier interest to his hopes and fears,
His finger moved, distinguishing the spots
Where wide-spread conflict then most fiercely raged;
Nor left unstigmatized those fatal fields
On which the sons of mighty Germany
Were taught a base submission. —' Here behold
'A nobler race, the Switzers, and their land,
'Vales deeper far than these of ours, huge woods,
'And mountains white with everlasting snow!'
-And, surely, he, that spake with kindling brow,
Was a true patriot, hopeful as the best
Of that young peasantry, who, in our days,
Have fought and perished for Helvetia's rightsAh, not in vain! —or those who, in old time,
For work of happier issue, to the side
Of Tell came trooping from a thousand huts,
When he had risen alone! No braver Youth
Descended from Judean heights, to march
With righteous Joshua; nor appeared in arms
When grove was felled, and altar was ca~t down,
And Gideon blew the trumpet, soul-inflamed,
And strong in hatred of idolatry."
The Pastor, even as if by these last words
Raised from his seat within the chosen shade,
Moved toward the grave;-instinctively his steps
We followed; and my voice with joy exclaimed;




584


The Excursion


"Power to the Oppressors of the world is given,
A might of which they dream not. Oh! the curse,
To be the awakener of divinest thoughts,
Father and founder of exalted deeds;
And, to whole nations bound in servile straits,
The liberal donor of capacities
More than heroic! this to be, nor yet
Have sense of one connatural wish, nor yet
Deserve the least return of human thanks;
Winning no recompense but deadly hate
With pity mixed, astonishment with scorn!"
When this involuntary strain had ceased,
The Pastor said: "So Providence is served;
The forked weapon of the skies can send
Illumination into deep, dark holds,
Which the mild sunbeam hath not power to pierce.
Ye Thrones that have defied remorse, and cast
Pity away, soon shall ye quake with fear
For, not unconscious of the mighty debt
Which to outrageous wrong the sufferer owes,
Europe, through all her habitable bounds,
Is thirsting for their overthrow, who yet
Survive, as pagan temples stood of yore,
By horror of their impious rites, preserved;
Are still permitted to extend their pride,
Like cedars on the top of Lebanon
Darkening the sun.
But less impatient thoughts,
And love 'all hoping and expecting all,'
This hallowed grave demands, where rests in peace
A humble champion of the better cause,.
A Peasant-youth, so call him, for he asked
No higher name; in whom our country showed,
As in a favourite son, most beautiful.
In spite of vice, and misery, and disease,
Spread with the spreading of her wealthy arts,
England, the ancient and the free, appeared
In him to stand before my swimming eyes,
Unconquerably virtuous and secure.
-No more of this, lest I offend his dust:
Short was his life, and a brief tale remains.
One day-a summer's day of annual pomp
And solemn chase-from morn to sultry noon
His steps had followed, fleetest of the fleet,




The Excursion


585


The red-deer driven along its native heights
With cry of hound and horn; and, from that toil
Returned with sinews weakened and relaxed,
This generous Youth, too negligent of self,
Plunged-'mid a gay and busy throng convened
To wash the fleeces of his Father's flockInto the chilling flood. Convulsions dire
Seized him, that self-same night; and through the space
Of twelve ensuing days his frame was wrenched,
Till nature rested from her work in death.
To him, thus snatched away, his comrades paid
A soldier's honours. At his funeral hour
Bright was the sun, the sky a cloudless blueA golden lustre slept upon the hills;
And if by chance a stranger, wandering there,
From some commanding eminence had looked
Down on this spot, well pleased would he have seen
A glittering spectacle; but every face
Was pallid: seldom hath that eye been moist
With tears, that wept not then; nor were the few,
Who from their dwellings came not forth to join
In this sad service, less disturbed than we.
They started at the tributary peal
Of instantaneous thunder, which announced,
Through the still air, the closing of the Grave;
And distant mountains echoed with a sound
Of lamentation, never heard before!"
The Pastor ceased.-My venerable Friend
Victoriously upraised his clear bright eye;
And, when that eulogy was ended, stood
Enrapt, as if his inward sense perceived
The prolongation of some still response,
Sent by the ancient Soul of this wide land,
The Spirit of its mountains and its seas,
Its cities, temples, fields, its awful power,
Its rights and virtues-by that Deity
Descending, and supporting his pure heart
With patriotic confidence and joy.
And, at the last of those memorial words,
'The pining Solitary turned aside;
Whether through manly instinct to conceal
Tender emotions spreading from the heart
To his worn cheek; or with uneasy shame
For those cold humours of habitual spleen
U 2




586              Th e Excursioifa
That, fondly seekinghn' dispraiseof mah
Solace:adidself-excuse, had sothetimes utged
To self-abuse a'not tieloqueit tongue.
-Right toward the sacred Edifice his steps
Had been directed; and we saw him now
Intent upon a monunmehtal stone,
Whose uncouth' form was grafted on the wall,
'Or rather seemied to shave grown into the Side
Of the itud pile; as'bfttimes trunks of trees,
Where nature'works in wild and'rlaggy spots,
Are seen incdrporate with the living rockTo endure for'aye. The Vicar, taking'note
Of his employment, with a coUrtedus 'mile
Exclaimed"The sagest Antiquarian's'eye
That task would foil;" then, letting fall'his Voice,
While he advaficed,,thus Spake: "TraditiOn te'lls
That, in Eliza's golden days,,'a Knight
Came on a'War-horse,uniptttously attired,
And fixed his home in this sequestered vale,
'Tis left untold if here he first drew breath,
Or as a stranger reached this deep recess,
Unknowing and unknown. A pleasing thought
I sometimes entertain,fthat haply bound
To Scotland's court in service of his' Queen,
Or sent on' mission to some northern Chief
Of England's realm, this vale he might have seen
With transient observation; and thence caught
An image fair, which, brightening in his' soil
When joy of War and pride of chivalry
Languished beneath aCdumulated years,
Had power to draw him fro6m the world,, resolved
To make that paradise his chosen home
To which his peaceful fancy oft had turned.
Vague thoughts are these; but, if belief inay rest
Upon unwritten story fondly traced
From sire to son, in this obscure retreat
The Knight arrived, with spear and shield, ind borne
Upon a Charger gorgeously bedecked
With broidered housings. And the lofty SteedHis sole companion, and hisfaithful friend,
Whom he, in gratitude, let loose to range
In fertile paStures-Was beheld with eyes
Of admiration and ddlightfutlawe,           t




The Excursion


587


By those untravelled Dalesmen. With less pride,
Yet free from touch of envious discontent,
They saw a mansion at his bidding rise,
Like a bright star, amid the lowly band
Of their rude homesteads. Here the Warrior dwelt;
And, in that mansion, children of his own,
Or kindred, gathered round him. As a tree
That falls and disappears, the house is gone;
And, through improvidence or want of love
For ancient- worth and honourable things,
The spear and shield are vanished, which the Knight
Hung in his rustic hall. One ivied arch
Myself have seen, a gateway, last remains
Of that foundation in domestic care
Raised by his hands. And now no trace is left
Of the mild-hearted Champion, save this stone,
Faithless memorial! and his family name
Borne by yon clustering cottages, that sprang
From out the ruins of his stately lodge:
These, and the name and title at full length,Nir lifreb rtmtnhw with appropriate words
Accompanied, still extant, in a wreath
Or posy, girding round the several fronts
Of three clear-sounding and harmonious bells,
That in the steeple hang, his pious gift."
"So fails, so languishes, grows dim, and dies,"
The grey-haired Wanderer pensively exclaimed,
"All that this world is proud of. From their spheres
The stars of human glory are cast down;
Perish the roses and the flowers of kings,
Princes, and emperors, and the crowns and palms
Of all the mighty, withered and consumed!
Nor is power given to lowliest innocence
Long to protect her own. The man himself
Departs; and soon is spent the line of those
Who, in the bodily image, in the mind,
In heart or soul, in station or pursuit,
Did most resemble him. Degrees and ranks,
Fraternities and orders-heaping high
New wealth upon the burthen of the old,
And placing trust in privilege confirmed
And re-confirmed-are scoffed at with a smile
Of greedy foretaste, from the secret stand
Of Desolation, aimed: to slow decline




588             The Excursion
These yield, and these to sudden overthrow:
Their virtue, service, happiness, and state
Expire; and nature's pleasant robe of green,
Humanity's appointed shroud, enwraps
Their monuments and their memory. The vast Frame
Of social nature changes evermore
Her organs and her members, with decay
Restless, and restless generation, powers
And functions dying and produced at need,And by this law the mighty whole subsists:
With an ascent and progress in the main;
Yet, oh! how disproportioned to the hopes
And expectations of self-flattering minds!
The courteous Knight, whose bones are here interred,
Lived in an age conspicuous as our own
For strife and ferment in the minds of men;
Whence alteration in the forms of things,
Various and vast. A memorable age!
Which did to him assign a pensive lotTo linger 'mid the last of those bright clouds
That, on the steady breeze of honour, sailed
In long procession calm and beautiful.
He who had seen his own bright order fade,
And its devotion gradually decline,
(While war, relinquishing the lance and shield,
Her temper changed, and bowed to other laws)
Had also witnessed, in his morn of life,
That violent commotion, which o'erthrew,
In town and city and sequestered glen,
Altar, and cross, and church of solemn roof,
And old religious house-pile after pile;
And shook their tenants out into the fields,
Like wild beasts without home! Their hour was come;
But why no softening thought of gratitude,
No just remembrance, scruple, or wise doubt?
Benevolence is mild; nor borrows help,
Save at worst need, from bold impetuous force,
Fitliest allied to anger and revenge.
But Human-kind rejoices in the might
Of mutability; and airy hopes,
Dancing around her, hinder and disturb
Those meditations of the soul that feed
The retrospective virtues. Festive songs
Break from the maddened nations at the sight




The Excursion


589


Of sudden overthrow; and cold neglect
Is the sure consequence of slow decay.
Even," said the Wanderer, " as that courteous Knight,
Bound by his vow to labour for redress
Of all who suffer wrong, and to enact
By sword and lance the law of gentleness,
(If I may venture of myself to speak,
Trusting that not incongruously I blend
Low things with lofty) I too shall be doomed
To outlive the kindly use and fair esteem
Of the poor calling which my youth embraced
With no unworthy prospect. But enough;
-Thoughts crowd upon me-and 'twere seemlier now
To stop, and yield our gracious Teacher thanks
For the pathetic records which his voice
Hath here delivered; words of heartfelt truth,
Tending to patience when affliction strikes;
To hope and love; to confident repose
In God; and reverence for the dust of Man."
BOOK EIGHTH
THE PARSONAGE
ARGUMENT
Pastor's apology and apprehensions that he. might have detained his
Auditors too long, with the Pastor's invitation to his house-Solitary
disinclined to comply-Rallies the Wanderer-And playfully draws a
comparison between his itinerant profession and that of the Knighterrant-Which leads to Wanderer's giving an account of changes in the
Country from the manufacturing spirit-Favourable effects-The other
side of the picture, and chiefly as it has affected the humbler classesWanderer asserts the hollowness of all national grandeur if unsupported
by moral worth-Physical science unable to support itself-Lamentations
over an excess of manufacturing industry among the humbler Classes of
Society-Picture of a Child employed in a Cotton-mill-Ignorance and
degradation of Children among the agricultural Population reviewedConversation broken off by a renewed Invitation from the Pastor-Path
leading to his House-Its appearance described-His Daughter-His
Wife-His Son (a Boy) enters with his Companion-Their happy
appearance-The Wanderer how affected by the sight of them.
THE pensive Sceptic of the lonely vale
To those acknowledgments subscribed his own,
With a sedate compliance, which the Priest
Failed not to notice, inly pleased, and said:" If ye, by whom invited I began
These narratives of calm and humble life,




S9o


The Excursion


Be satisfied, 'tis well,-the end is gained;
And, in return for-sympathy bestowed
And patient listening, thanks accept from me.
— Life, death, eternity! momentous themes
Are they-and might demand a seraph's tongue,
Were they not equal to their own support;
And therefore no incompetence of mine
Could do them wrong. The universal forms
Of human nature, in a spot like this,
Present themselves at once to all men's view:
Ye wished for act and circumstance, that make
The individual known and understood;
And such as my best judgment could select
From what the place afforded, have been given;
Though apprehensions crossed me that my zeal
To his might well be likened, who unlocks
A cabinet stored with gems and pictures-draws
His treasures forth, soliciting regard
To this, and this, as worthier than the last,
Till the spectator, who awhile was pleased
More than the exhibitor himself, becomes
Weary and faint, and longs to be released.
-But let us hence! my dwelling is in sight,
And there-"
At this the Solitary shrunk
With backward will; but, wanting not address
That inward motion to disguise, he said
To his Compatriot, smiling as he spake;
-" The peaceable remains of this good Knight
Would be disturbed, I fear, with wrathful scorn,
If consciousness could reach him where he lies
That one, albeit of these degenerate times,
Deploring changes past, or dreading change
Foreseen, had dared to couple, even in thought,
The fine vocation of the sword and lance
With the gross aims and body-bending toil
Of a poor brotherhood who walk the earth
Pitied, and, where they are not known, despised.
Yet, by the good Knight's leave, the two estates
Are graced with some resemblance. Errant those,
Exiles and wanderers-and the like are these;
Who, with their burthen, traverse hill and dale,
Carrying relief for nature's simple wants.
-What though no higher recompense be sought




The Excursion


59[


Than honest- maintenance, by irvksome toil..
Full oft procured, yet, my, they cl4aim respect,,.
Among the intelligent, for what. thi$ course,;
Enables them to be and toperform.
Their tardy steps give leisure toobserve,.
While solitude permits the.mind to, fe el;
Instructs, and prompts her to -supply defects ~:,
By the diyision of her inward self
For grateful converse: and to, these poor.,ipe.
Nature (I but repeat your favourite boast),
Is bountiful-go. wheresoe'er they, may;
Kind nature's various wealth is: adll their own.
Versed in the characters of men;: and bku;nd,
By ties of daily interest, to maintain
Conciliatory manners; and smooth speech;:
Such have been, and still are in their degree,
Examples efficacious to refine
Rude intercourse; apt agents to expel.
By importation of unlopked-for arts,
Barbarian torpor, and blind prejudice;
Raising, through just gradation, savage liie,
To rustic, and the rustic to urbane.
-Within their moving magazines? is lodgedPower that comes forth to quicken and exalt
Affections, seated in the, mother's, breast,
And in the, lover's fancy; and= to feed
The sober sympathies of long-tried friends,
-By these Itinerants, as experienced men,
Counsel is given; contention they- apapea s
With gentle language; in remoteSt ^ids
Tears wipe away, and pleasant tidings br-i.ng;.
Could the proud quest of chivalry do MOpra?"
"Happy," rejoined the Wanderer, "they who) gain
A panegyric from your generous, tongue-!
But, if to, these Wayfarers once pertained
Aught of romantic interest, it is gone.
Their purer service, in this realm at least,
Is past for ever.-An inventive Age
Has wrought, if not with speed of sagic, yet.
To most strange issues. I Iaye lived to mark
A new and unforeseen creation rise
From out the labours of a peaceful Lan4
Wielding her potent enginery to frame
And to produce, with appetite as keen




592


The Excursion


As that of war, which rests not night or day,
Industrious to destroy! With fruitless pains'
Might one like me now visit many a tract
Which, in his youth, he trod, and trod again,
A lone pedestrian with a scanty freight,
Wished-for, or welcome, wheresoe'er he cameAmong the tenantry of thorpe and vill;
Or straggling burgh, of ancient charter proud,
And dignified by battlements and towers
Of some stern castle, mouldering on the brow
Of a green hill or bank of rugged stream.
The foot-path faintly marked, the horse-track wild,
And formidable length of plashy lane,
(Prized avenues ere others had been shaped
Or easier links connecting place with place)
Have vanished-swallowed up by stately roads
Easy and bold, that penetrate the gloom
Of Britain's farthest glens. The Earth has lent
Her waters, Air her breezes; and the sail
Of traffic glides with ceaseless intercourse,
Glistening along the low and woody dale;
Or, in its progress, on the lofty side,
Of some bare hill, with wonder kenned from far.
Meanwhile, at social Industry's command,
How quick, how vast an increase! From the germ
Of some poor hamlet, rapidly produced
Here a huge town, continuous and compact,
Hiding the face of earth for leagues-and there,
Where not a habitation stood before,
Abodes of men irregularly massed
Like trees in forests,-spread through spacious tracts,
O'er which the smoke of unremitting fires
Hangs-permanent, and plentiful as wreaths
Of vapour glittering in the morning sun.
And, wheresoe'er the traveller turns his steps,
He sees the barren wilderness erased,
Or disappearing;; triumph that proclaims
How much the mild Directress of the plough
Owes to alliance with these new-born arts!
-Hence is the wide sea peopled,-hence the shores
Of Britain are resorted to by ships
Freighted from every climate of the world
With the world's choicest produce. Hence that sum:
Of keels that rest within her crowded ports,




The Excursion


593


Or ride at anchor in her sounds and bays;
That animating spectacle of sails
That, through her inland regions, to and fro
Pass with the respirations of the tide,
Perpetual, multitudinous! Finally,
Hence a dread arm of floating power, a voice
Of thunder daunting those who would approach
With hostile purposes the blessed Isle,
Truth's consecrated residence, the seat
Impregnable of Liberty and Peace.
And yet, O happy Pastor of a flock
Faithfully watched, and, by that loving care
And Heaven's good providence, preserved from taint!
With you I grieve, when on the darker side
Of this great change I look; and there behold
Such outrage done to nature as compels
The indignant power to justify herself;
Yea, to avenge her violated rights,
For England's bane.-When soothing darkness spreads
O'er hill and vale," the Wanderer thus expressed
His recollections, " and the punctual stars,
While all things else are gathering to their homes,
Advance, and in the firmament of heaven
Glitter-but undisturbing, undisturbed;
As if their silent company were charged
With peaceful admonitions for the heart
Of all-beholding Man, earth's thoughtful lord;
Then, in full many a region, once like this
The assured domain of calm simplicity
And pensive quiet, an unnatural light
Prepared for never-resting Labour's eyes
Breaks from a many-windowed fabric huge;
And at the appointed hour a bell is heardOf harsher import than the curfew-knoll
That spake the Norman Conqueror's stern behestA local summons to unceasing toil!
Disgorged are now the ministers of day;
And, as they issue from the illumined pile,
A fresh band meets them, at the crowded doorAnd in the courts-and where the rumbling stream,
That turns the multitude of dizzy wheels,
Glares, like a troubled spirit, in its bed
Among the rocks below. Men, maidens, youths,
Mother and little children, boys and girls,




594


The Excursima


Enter, and eachJb.irfe  wonted. task resumes.
Within this temple, where. is. offered up  ' -.
To Gain, the master iGidl of:-he (realm,.
Perpetual sacrifice,., Even thus. of oldl::
Our ancestors, withint the still domain..;
Of vast cathe,&al or convenaatll church,  -
Their vigils kept;- where. tapers day::andi night
On the dim altar burned: continuatlly:,.-....-.
In token that the HIouse was. evermorem.
Watching to God.    eligiou.s.men were they;
Nor would their reason, tutored to aspire
Above this transitory world, allow
That there sb.ould pass.a momeint of thie year;,
When. in their land the. Almighty's. service ceased.
Triumph, who will in these profaner rites
Which we, a genaeration.selffextolled,
As zealously perform!: I canarot share
His proud complacency; —yet; do I exult,  -:Ca.ing reserve. away,: exault to: seeAn intellectual mastery exercised  '   -.
O'er the blind elements.; a purpose given,'
A perseverance fed; almost a. soul
Imparted-to brute, matter. I rejoice,
Measuring the force of those gigantiac powers
That, by the thinking mind, have been compelled
To serve the will of feeble-,bodied Man..
For with the sense of admiration blends8
The animating hope that time may come
When, strengthened, yet not dazzled?, by the might
Of this dominion over nature gained,
Men of all lands shallt exercise the same
In due propotion to. their country" ' need;
Learning, though late, that all true glory rests,
All praise, all safety, and all happiness;
Upon the moral. lawe. Egyptian Thebes,
Tyre, by the margin of the sounding waves,
Palmyra, central in the desert, fell;
And the Arts died by which they had been raised.
-Call Archimedes from his buried tomb
Upon the grave of vanished Syracuse,
And feelingly the Sage shall make -report'
How insecure, how baseless in itself,-:
Is the Philosophy whose sway depends: -
On mere material instruments;-how weak




The Excursion


595


Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped;
By virtue.-He, sighing with pensive grief,.
Amid his calm abstractions, would admit
That not the slender privilege is theirs
To save themselves from blank forgetfulness '.
When from the Wanderer's lips these words had fallen,
I said, "And, did in truth those vaunted Arts
Possess such privilege, how could we escape
Sadness and keen regret, we who revere,
And would preserve as things above all price,
The old domestic morals of the land,
Her simple manners, and the stable worth
That dignified and cheered a low estate?
Oh! where is now the character of peace,.
Sobriety, and order, and chaste love,
And honest dealing, and untainted speech,
And pure good-will, and hospitable cheer;
That made the very thought of country-life
A thought of refuge, for a mind detained
Reluctantly amid the bustling crowd?
Where now the beauty of the sabbath kept
With conscientious reverence, as a day
By the almighty Lawgiver pronounced
Holy and blest? and where the winning grace
Of all the lighter ornaments attached
To time and season, as the year rolled round?"
"Fled!" was the Wanderer's passionate response,
"Fled utterly! or only to be traced
In a few fortunate retreats like this;
Which I behold with trembling, when I think
What lamentable change, a year-a month- -
May bring; that brook converting as it runs
Into an instrument of deadly bane
For those, who, yet untempted to forsake
The simple occupations of their sires,
Drink the pure water of its innocent stream
With lip almost as pure. —Domestic bliss
(Or call it comfort, by a humbler name,)
How art thou blighted for 'the poor Man's heart!
Lo! in such neighbourhood, from morn to eve,
The habitations empty! or perchance
The Mother left alone,-no helping hand
To rock the cradle of her peevish babe;




596              The Excursion
No daughters round her, busy at the wheel,
Or in dispatch of each day's little growth
Of household occupation; no nice arts
Of needle-work; no bustle at the fire,
Where once the dinner was prepared with pride;
Nothing to speed the day, or cheer the mind;
Nothing to praise, to teach, or to command!
The Father, if perchance he still retain
His old employments, goes to field or wood,
No longer led or followed by the Sons;
Idlers perchance they were,-but in his sight;
Breathing fresh air, and treading the green earth:
'Till their short holiday of childhood ceased,
Ne'er to return! That birthright now is lost.
Economists will tell-you that the State
Thrives by the forfeiture —unfeeling thought,
And false as monstrous I Can the mother thrive
By the destruction of her innocent sons
In whom a premature necessity
Blocks out the forms of nature, preconsumes
The reason, famishes the heart, shuts up
The infant Being in itself, and makes
Its very spring a season of decay!
The lot is wretched, the condition sad,
Whether a pining discontent survive,
And thirst for change; or habit hath subdued
The soul deprest, dejected-even to love
Of her close tasks, and long captivity.
Oh, banish far such wisdom as condemns
A native Briton to these inward chains,
Fixed in his soul, so early and so deep;
Without his own consent, or knowledge, fixed!
He is a slave to whom release comes not,
And cannot come., The boy, where'er he turns,
Is still a prisoner; when the wind is up
Among the clouds, and roars through the ancient woods;
Or when the sun is shining:in the east,
Quiet and calm. Behold him-in the school
Of his attainments? no; buit with the air
Fanning his temples under heaven's blue arch.
His raiment, whitened o'er with cotton-flakes
Or locks of wool, announces whence he comes.
Creeping his gait and cowering, his lip pale,




The Excursion


597


His respiration quick and audible;
And scarcely could you fancy that a gleam
Could break from out those languid eyes, or a blush
Mantle upon his cheek. Is this the form,
Is that the countenance, and such, the port,
Of no mean Being? One who should be clothed
With dignity befitting his proud hope;
Who, in his very childhood, should appear
Sublime from present purity and joy!
The limbs increase; but liberty of mind
Is gone for ever; and this organic frame,
So joyful in its motions, is become
Dull, to the joy of.her own motions dead;
And even the touch, so exquisitely poured
Through the whole body, with a languid will
Performs its functions; rarely competent
To impress a vivid feeling on the mind
Of what there is delightful in the breeze,
The gentle visitations of the sun,
Or lapse of liquid element-by hand,
Or foot, or lip, in summer's warmth-perceived.
-Can hope look forward to a manhood raised
On such foundations?"
"Hope is none for him!"
The pale Recluse indignantly exclaimed,
"And tens of thousands suffer wrong as deep.
Yet be it asked, in justice to our age,
If there were not, before those arts appeared,
These structures rose, commingling old and young,
And unripe sex with sex, for mutual taint;
If there were not, then, in our far-famed Isle,
Multitudes, who from infancy had breathed
Air unirmprisoned, and had lived at large;
Yet walked beneath the smn, in human shape,
As abject, as degraded? At this day,
Who shall enumerate the crazy huts
And tottering hovels, whence do issue forth
A ragged Offspring, with their upright hair
Crowned like the image of fantastic Fear;
Or wearing, (shall we say?) in that white growth
An ill-adjusted turban, for defence
Or fierceness, wreathed around their sunburnt brows
By savage Nature? Shrivelled are their lips,
Naked, and coloured like the soil, the feet
On which they stand; as if thereby they drew




598              The Excursion
Some nourishment, as trees do by their roots,
From earth, the common mother of us all.
Figure und mien, complexion and attire,
Are leagued to strike dismay; but outstretched hand
And whining voice denote them supplicants
For the least boon that pity can bestow.
Such on the breast of darksome heaths are found;
And with their parents occupy the skirts
Of furze-clad commons; such are born and reared
At the mine's mouth under impending rocks;
Or dwell in chambers of some natural cave;
Or where their ancestors erected huts,
For the convenience of unlawful gain,
In forest purlieus; and the like are bred,
All England through, where nooks and slips of ground
Purloined, in times less jewlous than our own,
From the green margin of the public way,
A residence afford them, 'mid the bloom
And gaiety of cultivated fields.
Such (we will hope the lowest in, the scale)
Do I remember oft-times to have seen
'Mid Buxton's dreary heights. In earnest watch,
Till the swift vehicle approach, they stand;
Then, following closely with the cloud of dust,
An uncouth feat exhibit, and are gone
Heels over head, like tormblers on a stage.
-Up from the ground they snatch the oopper coin,
And, on the freight of merry passengers
Fixing a steady eye, maintain tieir speed;
And spin-and pant-and overhead again,
Wild pursuivants! antil their breath is lost,
Or bounty tires ---and every face, that smiled
Encouragement, hath ceased to look that way.
-But, like the vagrants of the gipsy tribe,
These, bred to little pleasure in themselves,
Are profitless to others.
Turn we then
To Britons born and bred within the pale
Of civil polity, and early trained
To earn, by wholesome labour in the field,
The bread they eat. A sample should I give
Of what this stock hath long produced to enrich
The tender age of life, ye would exclaim,
'Is this the whistling plough-boy whose shrill notes
Impart new gladness to the morning air!'




The" Excursion


599


Forgive me if I v'enture to suspect.
That many, sweet to: hear of in so'ft ~ferse,
Are of n'o fin'tr fraie. Stiff are his joints,
Beneath a cumbtoUms frock, that to the knees I
Invests the Jthrivi-g ehurl, his lhegs appear, "
Fellows to those that luistily upheld';
The wooden 'stools or- everlastitg usse,
Whereon ouit fathers; siate. And mark his brow
Under whose shaggy canopy are set
Two eyes- o6 t dim, but of a healthy:stareWide, sluggish, blank, -and ignorant, da: strange —
Proclaiming boldly that they nfever drew
A look or imotionh of intelligenc-e
From infant-conning of -the Christ-cross-row,
Or puzzling 'thro'ugh -a prim.er, line by line,
Till perfect mastery crown the pains at last.
-What kindly wrimth (from 'touch -of fostering hatMd,
What penetrating power of 'sun -or breee,
Shall e'er dissolve the 'crust wh'erein his soul'
Sleeps, like a caterpillar sheathed -in ice?
This torpor is no pitiabtle work
Of modernl ingenuity; no town
Nor crowded city can be taxed with aught
Of sottish vice or desperate breach 'of law,
To which (and who can tell1 where 'or how soon?)
He may be roused. This Boy the Fields prodtrce:
His spade and hoe, mattock ahd glittering scythe,
The carter's 'whip that on his shoulder tests
In air high-towering 'with a boorish pomp,
The sceptre of his sway; his country's name,
Her equal rights, her -dhurches 'and -her schoolsWhat have they done for him?  And, le-t me ask,
For tens of thousarnds uninformed as he'?
In brief, what liberty of mind i's "here?'
This ardent sally pleased 'the 7mild good Man,
To whom the 'appeal couched in its -closing words
Was pointedly addressed; -and 'to the t'houghts
That, in assent or opposition, rose
Within his mind, he 'seemed prepared to give
Prompt utterance; but the Vicar intetposed
With invitation urgently renewed.
-We followed, taking, as he led, a pafth
Along a hedge of hIllies dark and tall,
Whose flexile boughs'low belnding with a weight



60oo


The Excursion


Of leafy spray, concealed the stems and roots
That gave them nourishment. When frosty winds
Howl from the north, what kindly warmth, methought,
Is here-how grateful this impervious screen!
-Not shaped by simple wearing of the foot
On rural business passing to and fro
Was the commodious walk: a careful hand
Had marked the line, and strewn its surface o'er
With pure cerulean gravel, from the heights
Fetched by a neighbouring brook.-Across the vale
The stately fence accompanied our steps;
And thus the pathway, by perennial green
Guarded and graced, seemed fashioned to unite,
As by a beautiful yet solemn chain,
The Pastor's mansion with the house of prayer.
Like image of solemnity, conjoined
With feminine allurement soft and fair,
The mansion's self displayed:;-a reverend pile
With bold projections and recesses deep;
Shadowy, yet gay and lightsome as it stood
Fronting the noontide sun. We paused to admire
The pillared porch, elaborately embossed;
The low wide windows with their mullions old;
The cornice, richly fretted, of grey stone;
And that smooth slope from which the dwelling rose,:
By beds and banks Arcadian of gay flowersAnd flowering shrubs, protected and adorned:
Profusion bright! and every flower assuming
A more than natural vividness of hue,
From unaffected contrast with the gloom
Of sober cypress, and the darker foil
Of yew, in which survived some traces, here
Not unbecoming, of grotesque device
And uncouth fancy. From behind the roof
Rose the slim ash and massy sycamore,
Blending their diverse foliage with the green
Of ivy, flourishing and thick, that clasped
The huge round chimneys, harbour of delight
For wren and redbreast,-where they sit and sing
Their slender ditties when the trees are bare.
Nor must I leave untouched (the picture else
Were incomplete) a relique of old times
Happily spared, a little Gothic niche
Of nicest workmanship; that once had held




The Excursion


6o0


The sculptured image of some patron-saint,
Or of the blessed Virgin, looking down
On all who entered those religious doors.
But lo! where from the rocky garden-mount
Crowned by its antique summer-house-descends
Light as the silver fawn, a radiant Girl;
For she hath recognised her honoured friend,
The Wanderer ever welcome! A prompt kiss
The gladsome Child bestows at his request;
And, up the flowery lawn as we advance,
Hangs on the old Man with a happy look,
And with a pretty restless hand of love.
-We enter —by the Lady of the place
Cordially greeted. Graceful was her: port:
A lofty stature undepressed by time,
Whose visitation had not wholly spared
The finer lineaments of form and face;
To that complexion brought which prudence trusts in
And wisdom loves.- But when a stately ship
Sails in smooth weather by the placid coast
On homeward voyage, what-if wind and wave,
And hardship.undergone in various climes,
Have caused her to abate the virgin pride,
And that full trim of inexperienced hope
With which she left her haven-not for this,
Should the sun strike her, and the impartial breeze
Play on her streamers, fails she to assume
Brightness and touching beauty of her own,
That charm all eyes. So bright, so fair, appeared
This goodly Matron, shining in the beams
Of unexpected pleasure.-Soon the board
Was spread, and we partook a plain repast.
Here, resting in cool shelter, we beguiled
The mid-day hours with desultory talk;
From trivial themes to general argument
Passing, as accident or fancy led,
Or courtesy prescribed. While question rose
And answer flowed, the fetters of reserve
Dropping from every mind, the Solitary
Resumed the manners of his happier days;
And in the various conversation bore
A willing, nay, at times, a forward part;
Yet with the grace of one who in the world
Had learned the art of pleasing, and had now




602


The Excursion


Occasion given him to display his skill,
Upon the stedfast 'vantage-ground of truth.
He gazed, with admiration unsuppressed;
Upon the landscape of the sun.bright vale,
Seen, from the shady room in which we sate,.
In softened perspective; and more than once
Praised the consummate harmony serene
Of gravity and elegance, diffused
Around the mansion and its whole domain;
Not, doubtless, without help of female taste
And female care.-" A blessed lot is yours!"
The words escaped his lip, with a tender sigh
Breathed over them: but suddenly the door
Flew open, and a pair of lusty Boys
Appeared, confusion checking their delight.
-Not brothers they in feature or attire,
But fond companions, so I guessed, in field,
And by the river's margin-whence they come,
Keen anglers with unusual spoil elated.
One bears a willow-pannier on his back,
The boy of plainer garb, whose blush survives
More deeply tinged. Twin might the other be
To that fair girl who from the garden-mount
Bounded:-triumphant entry this for him!
Between his hands he holds a smooth blue stone,
On whose capacious surface see outspread
Large store of gleaming crimson-spotted trouts;
Ranged side by side, and lessening by degrees
Up to the dwarf that tops the pinnacle.
Upon the board he lays the sky-blue stone
With its rich freight;; their number he proclaims;
Tells from what pool the noblest had been dragged;
And where the very monarch of the brook,
After long struggle, had escaped at lastStealing alternately at them and us
(As doth his comrade too) a look of pride:
And, verily, the silent creatures made
A splendid sight, together thus exposed;
Dead-but not sullied or deformed by death,
That-seemed to pity what he could not spare.
But oh, the animation in the mien
Of those two boys! yea in the very words
With which the young narrator Was inspired,
When, as our-questions led, he told at large
Of that day's prowess! Him might I compare,




The Excursion                      603
His looks, tones, gestures, eager eloquence,
To a bold brook that.splits for better speed,
And at the self-same moment, works its way
Through many channels, ever and anon
Parted and re-united: his compeer
To the still lake, whose stillness is to sight
As beautiful-as grateful to the mind.
-But to what object shall the lovely Girl
Be likened?   She whose countenance and air
Unite the graceful qualities of both,
Even as she shares the pride and joy of both.
My grey-haired Friend was moved; his vivid eye
Glistened with tenderness; his mind, I knew,
Was full; and had, I doubted not, returned,
Upon this impulse, to the theme-erewhile
Abruptly broken off. The ruddy boys
Withdrew, on summons to their well-earned meal;
And He-to whom all tongues resigned their rights
With willingness, to whom the general ear
Listened with readier patience than to strain
Of music, lute or harp, a long delight
That ceased not when his voice had ceased-as One
Who from truth's central point serenely views
The compass of his argument-began
Mildly, and with a clear and steady tone.
BOOK NINTH
DISCOURSE OF THE WANDERER, AND AN EVENING VISIT
TO THE LAKE
ARGUMENT
Wanderer asserts that an active principle pervades the Universe, its'
noblest seat the human soul-How lively this principle is in Childhood
-Hence the delight in old Age'of looking back upon Childhood-The
dignity, powers, and privileges of Age asserted-These not to be
looked for generally but under a just government-Right of a human
Creature to be exempt from being considered as a mere InstrumentThe condition of multitudes deplored-Former conversation recurred to,
and the Wanderer's opinions set in a clearer light-Truth placed within
reach of the humblest-Equality —Happy state of the two Boys again
adverted to-Earnest wish expressed for a System of National Education established universally by Government-Glorious effects of this
foretold-Walk to the Lake-Grand spectacle from the side of a hillAddress of Priest to the Supreme Being-In the course of which he
contrasts with ancient Barbarism the present appearance of the scene
before him-The change ascribed to Christianity-Apostrophe to his
flock, living and dead-Gratitude to the Almighty-Return over.the
Lake-Parting with the Solitary-Under what circumstances.




604


The Excursion


"To every Form of being is assigned,"
Thus calmly spake the venerable Sage,
"An active Principle: —howe'er removed
From sense and observation, it subsists
In all things, in all natures; in the stars
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,
In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
The moving waters, and the invisible air.
Whate'er exists hath properties that spread
Beyond itself, communicating good,
A simple blessing, or with evil mixed;
Spirit that knows no insulated spot,
No chasm, no solitude; from link to link
It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds.
This is the freedom of the universe;
Unfolded still the more, more visible,
The more we know; and yet is reverenced least,
And least respected in the human Mind,
Its most apparent home. The food of hope
Is meditated action; robbed of this
Her sole support, she languishes and dies.
We perish also; for we live by hope
And by desire; we see by the glad light
And breathe the sweet air of futurity;
And so we live, or else we have no life.
To-morrow-nay perchance this very hour
(For every moment hath its own to-morrow!)
Those blooming Boys, whose hearts are almost sick
With present triumph, will be sure to find
A field before them freshened with the dew
Of other expectations;-in which course
Their happy year spins round. The youth obeys
A like glad impulse; and so moves the man
'Mid all his apprehensions, cares, and fears,Or so he ought to move. Ah! why in age
Do we revert so fondly to the walks
Of" childhood-but that there the Soul discerns
The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired
Of her own native vigour; thence can hear
Reverberations; and a choral song,
Commingling with the incense that ascends,
Undaunted, toward the imperishable heavens,
From her own lonely altar?
Do not think




The Excursion


605


That good and wise ever will be allowed,
Though strength decay, to breathe in such estate
As shall divide them wholly from the stir
Of hopeful nature. Rightly is it said
That Man descends into the VALE of years;
Yet have I thought that we might also speak,
And not presumptuously, I trust, of Age,
As of a final EMINENCE; though bare
In aspect and forbidding, yet a point
On which 'tis not impossible to sit
In awful sovereignty; a place of power,
A throne, that may be likened unto his,
Who, in some placid day of summer, looks
Down from a mountain-top,-say one of those
High peaks, that bound the vale where now we are.
Faint, and diminished to the gazing eye,
Forest and field, and hill and dale appear,
With all the shapes over their surface spread:
But, while the gross and visible frame of things
Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,
Yea almost on the Mind herself, and seems
All unsubstantialized,-how loud the voice
Of waters, with invigorated peal
From the full river in the vale below,
Ascending! For on that superior height
Who sits, is disencumbered from the press
Of near obstructions, and is privileged
To breathe in solitude, above the host
Of ever-humming insects, 'mid thin air
That suits not them. The murmur of the leaves
Many and idle, visits not his ear:
This he is freed from, and from thousand notes
(Not less unceasing, not less vain than these,)
By which the finer passages of sense
Are occupied; and the Soul, that would incline
To listen, is prevented or deterred.
And may it not be hoped, that, placed by age
In like removal, tranquil though severe,
We are not so removed for utter loss;
But for some favour, suited to our need?
What more than that the severing should confer
Fresh power to commune with the invisible world,
And hear the mighty stream of tendency
Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
A clear sonorous voice, inaudible




606              The   Excursion
To the vast multitude; whose doom it is
To run the giddy round of vain delight,
Or fret and labour on the Plain below.
But, if to such sublime ascent the hopes:
Of Man may rise, as to a welcome close
And termination of his mortal course;
Them only can such hope inspire whose minds
Have not been starved by absolute neglect;
Nor bodies crushed by unremitting toil;
To whom kind Nature, therefore, may afford
Proof of the sacred love she bears for all;
Whose birthright Reason, therefore, may ensure,
For me, consulting what I feel within
In times when most existence with herself
Is satisfied, I cannot but believe,
That, far as kindly Nature hath free scope
And Reason's sway predominates; even so far,
Country, society, and time itself,
That saps the individual's bodily frame,
And lays the generations low in dust,
Do, by the almighty Ruler's grace, partaker
Of one maternal spirit, bringing forth
And cherishing with ever-constant love,
That tires not, nor betrays. Our life is turned
Out of her course, wherever man is made
An offering, or a sacrifice, a tool
Or implement, a passive thing employed
As a brute mean, without acknowledgment
Of common right or interest in the end;
Used or abused, as selfishness may prompt.
Say, what can follow for a rational soul
Perverted thus, but weakness in all good,
And strength in evil? Hence an after-call
For chastisement, and custody, and bonds,
And oft-times Death, avenger of the past,
And the sole guardian in whose hands we dare
Entrust the future.-Not for these sad issues
Was Man created; but to obey the law
Of life, and hope, and action. And 'tis known
That when we stand upon our native soil,
Unelbowed by such objects as oppress
Our active powers, those powers themselves become
Strong to subvert our noxious qualities:
They sweep distemper from the busy day,
And make the chalice of the bigfround year




The Excursion


607


Run o'er with gladness; whence the Being moves
In beauty through the world; and all- who see
Bless him, rejoicing in his neighbourhood."
"Then," said the Solitary, "by what force
Of language shall a feeling heart express
Her sorrow for that multitude in whom
We look for health from seeds that have been sown
In sickness, and for increase in a power
That works but by extinction? On themselves
They cannot lean, nor turn to their own hearts
To know what they must do; their wisdom is
To look into the eyes of others, thence
To be instructed what they must avoid:
Or rather, let us say, how least observed,
How with most quiet and most silent death,
With the least taint and injury to the air
The oppressor breathes, their human form divine,
And their immortal soul, may waste away."
The Sage rejoined, "I thank you-you have spared
My voice the utterance of a keen regret,
A wide compassion which with you I share.
When, heretofore, I placed before your sight
A Little-one, subjected to the -arts
Of modern ingenuity, and made
The senseless member of a vast machine,
Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel;
Think not, that, pitying him, I could forget
The rustic Boy, who walks the:fields, untaught;
The slave of ignorance, and oft of want,
And miserable hunger. Much, too much,
Of this unhappy lot, in early youth
We both have witnessed, lot which I myself
Shared, though in mild and merciful degree:
Yet was the mind to hindrances exposed,
Through which I struggled, not without distress
And sometimes injury, like a lamb enthralled
'Mid thorns and brambles; or a bird that breaks
Through a strong net, and mounts upon the wind,
Though with her plumes impaired. If they, whose souls
Should open while they range the richer fields
o Of merry England, are obstructed less
By indigence, their ignorance is not less,
Nor less to be deplored. For who can doubt
That tens of thousands at this day exist




608             The Excursion
Such as the boy you painted, lineal heirs
Of those who once were vassals of her soil,
Following its fortunes like the beasts or trees
Which it sustained. But no one takes delight
In this oppression; none are proud of it;
It bears no sounding name, nor ever bore;
A standing grievance, an indigenous vice
Of every country under heaven. My thoughts
Were turned to evils that are new and chosen,
A bondage lurking under shape of good,Arts, in themselves beneficent and kind,
But all too fondly followed and too far;To victims, which the merciful can see
Nor think that they are victims-turned to wrongs,
By women, who have children of their own,
Beheld without compassion, yea with praise!
I spake of mischief by the wise diffused
With gladness, thinking that the more it spreads
The healthier, the securer, we become;
Delusion which a moment may destroy!
Lastly, I mourned for those whom I had seen
Corrupted and cast down, on favoured ground,
Where circumstance and nature had combined
To shelter innocence, and cherish love;
Who, but for this intrusion, would have lived,
Possessed of health, and strength, and peace of mind;
Thus would have lived, or never have been born.
Alas! what differs more than man from man!
And whence that difference? whence but from himself?
For see the universal Race endowed
With the same upright form!-The sun is fixed,
And the infinite magnificence of heaven
Fixed, within reach of every human eye;
The sleepless ocean murmurs for all ears;
The vernal field infuses fresh delight
Into all hearts. Throughout the world of sense,
Even as an object is sublime or fair,
That object is laid open to the view
Without reserve or veil; and as a power
Is salutary, or an influence sweet,
Are each and all enabled to perceive
That power, that influence, by impartial law.
Gifts nobler are vouchsafed alike to all;
Reason, and, with that reason, smiles and tears;
Imagination, freedom in the will;




The Excursion


609


Conscience to guide and check; and death to be
Foretasted, immortality conceived
By all,-a blissful immortality,
To them whose holiness on earth shall make
The Spirit capable of heaven, assured.
Strange, then, nor less than monstrous, might be deemed
The failure, if the Almighty, to this point
Liberal and undistinguishing, should hide
The excellence of moral qualities
From common understanding; leaving truth
And virtue, difficult, abstruse, and dark;
Hard to be won, and only by a few;
Strange, should He deal herein with nice respects,
And frustrate all the rest! Believe it not:
The primal duties shine aloft-like stars;
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of Man-like flowers.
The generous inclination, the just rule,
Kind wishes, and good actions, and pure thoughtsNo mystery is here! Here is no boon
For high-yet not for low; for proudly gracedYet not for meek of heart. The smoke ascends
To heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth
As from the haughtiest palace. He, whose soul
Ponders this true equality, may walk
The fields of earth with gratitude and hope;
Yet, in that meditation, will he find
Motive to sadder grief, as we have found;
Lamenting ancient virtues overthrown,
And for the injustice grieving, that hath made
So wide a difference between man and man.
Then let us rather fix our gladdened thoughts
Upon the brighter scene. How blest that pair
Of blooming Boys (whom we beheld even now),
Blest in their several and their common lot!
A few short hours of each returning day
The thriving prisoners of their village school:
And thence let loose, to seek their pleasant homes
Or range the grassy lawn in vacancy:
To breathe and to be happy, run and shout
Idle,-but no delay, no harm, no loss;
For every genial power of heaven and earth,
Through all the seasons of the changeful year,
Obsequiously doth take upon herself
To labour for them; bringing each in turn
x




6io


The Excursion


The tribute of enjoyment, knowledge, health,
Beauty, or strength! Such privilege is theirs,
Granted alike in the outset of their course
To both; and, if that partnership must cease,
I grieve not," to the Pastor here he turned,
"Much as I glory in that child of yours,
Repine not for his cottage-comrade, whom
Belike no higher destiny awaits
Than the old hereditary wish fulfilled;
The wish for liberty to live-content
With what Heaven grants, and die-in peace of mind,
Within the bosom of his native vale.
At least, whatever fate the noon of life
Reserves for either, sure it is that both
Have been permitted to enjoy the dawn;
Whether regarded as a jocund time,
That in itself may terminate, or lead
In course of nature to a sober eve.
Both have been fairly dealt with; looking back
They will allow that justice has in them
Been shown, alike to body and to mind."
He paused, as if revolving in his soul
Some weighty matter then, with fervent voice
And an impassioned majesty, exclaimed"   for the coming of that glorious time
When, prizing knowledge as her noblest Wealth
And best protection, this imperial Realm,
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation, on her part, to each
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself by statute to secure
For all the children whom her soil maintains
The rudiments of letters, and inform
The mind-with moral and religious truth,
Both understood and practised:-so that none,
However destitute, be left to droop
By timely culture unsustained; or run
Into a wild disorder; or be forced
To drudge throdgh a weary life without the help
Of intellectual implements and tools;
A savage horde- among the civilised,
A servile band among the lordly free!
This sacred right, the lisping babe proclaims
To be inherent in himh by Heaaven'is will,




The    Excursion                C
For the protection of his innocence;
And the rude boy-who, having overpast
The sinless age, by conscience is enrolled,
Yet mutinously knits his angry brow,
And lifts his wilful hand on mischief bent,
Or turns the godlike faculty of speech
To impious use-by process indirect
Declares his due, while he makes known his need,
-This sacred right is fruitlessly announced,
This universal plea in vain addressed,
To eyes and ears of parents who themselves
Did, in the time of their necessity,
Urge it in vain; and, therefore, like a prayer.That from the humblest floor ascends to heaven,
It mounts to meet the State's parental ear;
Who, if indeed she own a mother's heart,
And be not most unfeelingly devoid
Of gratitude to Providence, will grant
The unquestionable good-which, England, safe
From interference of external force,
May grant at leisure; without risk incurred
That what in wisdom for herself she doth,
Others shall e'er be able to undo.
Look! and behold, from Calpe's sunburnt cliffs
To the flat margin of the Baltic sea,
Long-reverenced titles cast away as weeds;
Laws overturned; and territory split,
Like fields of ice rent by the polar wind,
And forced to join in less obnoxious shapes
Which, ere they gain consistence, by a gust
Of the same breath are shattered and destroyed.
Meantime the sovereignty of these fair Isles
Remains entire and indivisible:
And, if that ignorance were removed, which breeds
Within the compass of their several shores
Dark discontent, or load commotion, each
Might still preserve the beautiful repose
Of heavenly bodies shining in their spheres.
'-The discipline of slavery is unknown
Among us,-'hence the more dq we require
The discipline of virtue; order else
Cannot subsist, nor confidence, nor peace.
Thus, duties rising out of good possest,
And prudent caution needful to avert
Impending evil, equally require




6I2


The Excursion


That the whole people should be taught and trained.
So shall licentiousness and black resolve
Be rooted out, and virtuous habits take
Their place; and genuine piety descend,
Like an inheritance, from age to age.
With such foundations laid, avaunt the fear
Of numbers crowded on their native soil,
To the prevention of all healthful growth
Through mutual injury! Rather in the law
Of increase and the mandate from above
Rejoice!-and ye have special cause for joy.
-For, as the element of air affords
An easy passage to the industrious bees
Fraught with their burthens; and a way as smooth
For those ordained to take their sounding flight
From the thronged hive, and settle where they list
In fresh abodes-their labour to renew;
So the wide waters, open to the power,
The will, the instincts, and appointed needs
Of Britain, do invite her to cast off
Her swarms, and in succession send them forth;
Bound to establish new communities
On every shore whose aspect favours hope
Or bold adventure; promising to'skill
And perseverance their deserved reward.
Yes," he continued, kindling as he spake,
"Change wide, and deep, and silently performed,
This Land shall witness; and as days roll on,
Earth's universal frame shall feel the effect;
Even till the smallest habitable rock,
Beaten by lonely billows, hear the songs
Of humanised society; and bloom
With civil arts, that shall breathe forth their fragrance,
A grateful tribute to all-ruling Heaven.
From culture, unexclusively bestowed
On Albion's noble Race in freedom born,
Expect these mighty issues: from the pains
And faithful care of unambitious schools
Instructing simple childhood's ready ear;
Thence look for these magnificent results!
-Vast the circumference of hope-and ye
Are at its centre, British Lawgivers;
Ah sleep not there in shame! Shall Wisdom's voice
From out the bosom of these troubled times




The Excursion


6i3


Repeat the dictates of her calmer mind,
And shall the venerable halls ye fill
Refuse to echo the sublime decree?
Trust not to partial care a general good;
Transfer not to futurity a work
Of urgent need.-Your Country must complete
Her glorious destiny. Begin even now,
Now, when oppression, like the Egyptian plague
Of darkness, stretched o'er guilty Europe, makes
The brightness more conspicuous that invests
The happy Island where ye think and act;
Now, when destruction is a prime pursuit,
Show to the wretched nations for what end
The powers of civil polity were given."
Abruptly here, but with a graceful air,
The Sage broke off. No sooner had he ceased
Than, looking forth, the gentle Lady said,
" Behold the shades of afternoon have fallen
Upon this flowery slope; and see-beyondThe silvery lake is streaked with placid blue;
As if preparing for the peace of evening.
How temptingly the landscape shines! The air
Breathes invitation; easy is the walk
To the lake's margin, where a boat lies moored
Under a sheltering tree."-Upon this hint
We rose together; all were pleased; but most
The beauteous girl, whose cheek was flushed with joy.
Light as a sunbeam glides along the hills
She vanished-eager to impart the scheme
To her loved brother and his shy compeer.
-Now was there bustle in the Vicar's house
And earnest preparation.-Forth we went,
And down the vale along the streamlet's edge
Pursued our way, a broken company,
Mute or conversing, single or in pairs.
Thus having reached a bridge, that overarched
The hasty rivulet where it lay becalmed
In a deep pool, by happy chance we saw
A twofold image; on a grassy bank
A snow-white ram, and in the crystal flood
Another and the same! Most beautiful,
On the green turf, with his imperial front
Shaggy and bold, and wreathed horns superb,
The breathing creature stood; as beautiful,
Beneath him, showed his shadowy counterpart.




614


The Excursion


Each had his glowing mountains, each his sky,
And each seemed centre of his own fair world
Antipodes unconscious of each other,
Yet, in partition, with their several spheres,
Blended in perfect stillness, to our sight!
"Ah! what a pity were it to disperse,
Or to disturb, so fair a spectacle,
And yet a breath can do it!"
These few words
The Lady whispered, while we stood and gazed
Gathered together, all in still delight,
Not without awe. Thence passing on, she said
In like low voice to my particular ear,
"I love to hear that eloquent old Man
Pour forth his meditations, and descant
On human life from infancy to age.
How pure his spirit! in what vivid hues
His mind gives back the various forms of things,
Caught in their fairest, happiest,- attitude!
While he is speaking, I have power to: see
Even as he sees; but when his voice hath ceased,
Then, with a sigh, sometimes I feel, as now,
That combinations so serene and bright
Cannot be lasting in a world like ours,
Whose highest beauty, beautiful as it is,
Like that reflected in yon quiet pool,
Seems but a fleeting sunbeam's gift, whose peace,
The sufferance only of a breath of air! "
More had she said-but sportive shouts were heard
Sent from the jocund hearts of those two Boys,
Who, bearing each a basket on his arm,
Down the green field came tripping after us.
With caution we embarked; and now the pair
For prouder service were addrest; but each,
Wishful to leave an opening for my choice,
Dropped the light oar his eager hand. had seized.
Thanks given for that becoming courtesy,
Their place I took-and for a grateful office
Pregnant with recollections of the time
When, on thy bosom, spacious Windermere!
A Youth, I practised this delightful art;
Tossed on the waves alone, or 'mid a crewOf joyous comrades. Soon as the reedy marge
Was cleared, I dipped, with arms accordant, oars -




The Excursion


615


Free from obstruction; and the boat advanced
Through crystal water, smoothly as a hawk,
That, disentangled from the shady boughs
Of some thick wood, her place of covert, cleaves
With correspondent wings the abyss of air.
-" Observe," the Vicar said, "yon rocky isle
With birch-trees fringed; my hand shall guide the helm,
While thitherward we shape our course; or while
We seek that other, on the western shore;
Where the bare columns of those lofty firs,
Supporting gracefully a massy dome
Of sombre foliage, seem to imitate
A Grecian temple rising from the Deep."
"Turn where we may," said I, "we cannot err
In this delicious region."-Cultured slopes,
Wild tracts of forest-ground, and scattered groves,
And mountains bare, or clothed with ancient woods,
Surrounded us; and, as we held our way
Along the level of the glassy flood,
They ceased not to surround us; change of place
From kindred features diversely combined,
Producing change of beauty ever new.
-Ah! that such beauty, varying in the light
Of living nature, cannot be portrayed
By words, nor by the pencil's silent skill;
But is the property of him alone
Who hath beheld it, noted it with care,
And in his mind recorded it with love!
Suffice it, therefore, if the rural Muse
Vouchsafe sweet influence, while her Poet speaks
Of trivial occupations well devised,
And unsought pleasures springing up by chance;
As if some friendly Genius had ordained
That, as the day thus far had been enriched
By acquisition of sincere delight,
The same should be continued to its close.
One spirit animating old and young,
A gipsy-fire we kindled on the shore
Of the fair Isle with birch-trees fringed-and there,
Merrily seated in a ring, partook
A choice repast-served by our young companions
With rival earnestness and kindred glee.
Launched from our hands the smooth stone skimmed the
lake;




6i6


The Excursion


With shouts we raised the echoes;-stiller sounds
The lovely Girl supplied-a simple song,
Whose low tones reached not to the distant rocks
To be repeated thence, but gently sank
Into our hearts; and charmed the peaceful flood.
Rapaciously we gathered flowery spoils
From land and water; lilies of each hueGolden and white, that float upon the waves,
And court the wind; and leaves of that shy plant,
(Her flowers were shed) the lily of the vale,
That loves the ground, and from the sun withholds
Her pensive beauty; from the breeze her sweets.
Such product, and such pastime, did the place
And season yield; but, as we re-embarked,
Leaving, ih quest of other scenes, the shore
Of that wild spot, the Solitary said
In a low voice, yet careless who might hear,
"The fire, that burned so brightly to our wish,
Where is it now?-Deserted on the beachDying, or dead! Nor shall the fanning breeze
Revive its ashes. What care we for this,
Whose ends are gained? Behold an emblem here
Of one day's pleasure, and all mortal joys!
And, in this unpremeditated slight
Of that which is no longer needed, see
The common course of human gratitude!"
This plaintive note disturbed not the repose
Of the still evening. Right across the lake
Our pinnace moves; then, coasting creek and bay,
Glades we behold, and into thickets peep,
Where couch the spotted deer; or raised our eyes
To shaggy steeps on which the careless goat
Browsed by the side of dashing waterfalls;
And thus the bark, meandering with the shore,
Pursued her voyage, till a natural pier
Of jutting rock invited us to land.
Alert to follow as the Pastor led,
We clomb a green hill's side; and, as we clomb,
The Valley, opening out her bosom, gave
Fair prospect, intercepted less and less,
O'er the flat meadows and indented coast
Of the smooth lake, in compass seen:-far off,
And yet conspicuous, stood the old Church-tower,




The Excursion


6I7


In majesty presiding over fields
And habitations seemingly preserved
From all intrusion of the restless world
By rocks impassable and mountains huge.
Soft heath this elevated spot supplied,
And choice of moss-clad stones, whereon we couched
Or sate reclined; admiring quietly
The general aspect of the scene; but each
Not seldom over anxious to make known
His own discoveries; or to favourite points
Directing notice, merely from a wish
To impart a joy, imperfect while unshared.
That rapturous moment never shall I forget
When these particular interests were effaced
From every mind!-Already had the sun,
Sinking with less than ordinary state,
Attained his western bound; but rays of lightNow suddenly diverging from the orb
Retired behind the mountain tops or veiled
By the dense air-shot upwards to the crown
Of the blue firmament-aloft, and wide:
And multitudes of little floating clouds,
Through their ethereal texture pierced-ere we,
Who saw, of change were conscious-had become
Vivid as fire; clouds separately poised,Innumerable multitude of forms
Scattered through half the circle of the sky;
And giving back, and shedding each on each,
With prodigal communion, the bright hues
Which from the unapparent fount of glory
They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive.
That which the heavens displayed, the liquid deep
Repeated; but with unity sublime!
While from the grassy mountain's open side
We gazed, in silence hushed, with eyes intent
On the refulgent spectacle, diffused
Through earth, sky, water, and all visible space,
The Priest in holy transport thus exclaimed:
"Eternal Spirit! universal God!
Power inaccessible to human thought,
Save by degrees and steps which thou hast deigned
To furnish; for this effluence of thyself,
To the infirmity of mortal sense
Vouchsafed; this local transitory type
X 2




6I8              The Excursion
Of thy paternal splendours, and the pomp
Of those who fill thy courts in highest heaven,
The radiant Cherubim; —accept the thanks
Which we, thy humble Creatures, here convened,
Presume to offer; we, who-from the breast
Of the frail earth, permitted to behold
The faint reflections only of thy.faceAre yet exalted, and in soul adore!
Such as they are who in thy presence stand.
Unsullied, incorruptible, and drink
Imperishable majesty streamed forth
From thy empyreal throne, the elect of earth
Shall be-divested at the appointed hour
Of all dishonour, cleansed from mortal stain.
-Accomplish, then, their number; and conclude
Time's weary course! Or if, by thy decree,
The consummation that will come by stealth
Be yet far distant, let thy Word prevail,
Oh! let thy Word prevail, to take away
The sting of human nature. Spread the law,
As it is written in thy holy book,
Throughout all lands; let every nation hear
The high behest, and every heart obey;
Both for the love of purity, and hope
Which it affords, to such as do thy will
And persevere in good, that they shall rise,
To have a nearer view of.thee, in heaven.
-Father of good! this prayer in bounty grant,
In mercy grant it, to thy wretched sons.
Then, not till then, shall persecution cease,
And cruel wars expire. The way is marked,
The guide appointed, and the ransom paid.
Alas! the nations, who of yore received
These tidings, and in Christian temples meet
The sacred truth to knowledge, linger still;
Preferring bonds and darkness to a state
Of holy freedom, by redeeming love
Proffered to all, while yet on earth detained.
So 'fare the many; and the thoughtful few,
Who in the anguish of their souls bewail
This dire perverseness, cannot choose but ask,
'Shall it endure?-Shall enmity and strife,
Falsehood and guile, be left to sow their seed;.
And the kind never perish? Is the hope
Fallacious, or shall righteousness obtain




The Excursion


6I9


A peaceable dominion, wide as earth,
And ne'er to fail? Shall that blest day arrive
When they, whose choice or lot it is to dwell
In crowded cities, without fear shall live
Studious of mutual benefit; and he,
Whom Morn awakens, among dews and flowers
Of every clime, to till the lonely field,
Be happy in himself?-The law of faith
Working through love, such conquest shall it gain,
Such triumph over sin and guilt achieve?
Almighty Lord, thy further grace impart!
And with that help the wonder shall be seen
Fulfilled, the hope accomplished; and thy praise
Be sung with transport and unceasing joy.
Once," and with mild demeanour, as he spake,
On us the venerable Pastor turned
His beaming eye that had been raised to Heaven,
" Once, while the Name, Jehovah, was a sound
Within the circuit of this sea-girt isle
Unheard, the savage nations bowed the head
To Gods delighting in remorseless deeds;
Gods which themselves had fashioned, to promote
Ill purposes, and flatter foul desires.
Then, in the bosom of yon mountain-cove,
To those inventions of corrupted man
Mysterious rites were solemnised; and thereAmid impending rocks and gloomy woodsOf those terrific Idols some received
Such dismal service, that the loudest voice
Of the swoln cataracts (which now are heard
Soft murmuring) was too weak to overcome,
Though aided by wild winds, the groans and shrieks
Of human victims, offered up to appease
Or to propitiate. And, if living eyes
Had visionary faculties to see
The thing that hath been as the thing that is,
Aghast we might behold this crystal Mere
Bedimmed with smoke, in wreaths voluminous,
Flung from the body of devouring fires,
To Taranis erected on the heights
By priestly hands, for sacrifice performed
Exultingly, in view of open: day
And full assemblage of a barbarous host;
Or to Andates, female Power! who gave
(For so they fancied) glorious victory.




620


The Excursion


-A few rude monuments of mountain-stone
Survive; all else is swept away.-How bright
The appearances of things! From such, how changed
The existing worship; and with those compared,
The worshippers how innocent and blest!
So wide the difference, a willing mind
Might almost think, at this affecting hour,
That paradise, the lost abode of man,
Was raised again: and to a happy few,
In its original beauty, here restored.
Whence but from thee, the true and only God,
And from the faith derived through Him who bled
Upon the cross, this marvellous advance
Of good from evil; as if one extreme
Were left, the other gained.-O ye, who come
To kneel devoutly in yon reverend Pile,
Called to such office by the peaceful sound
Of sabbath bells; and ye, who sleep in earth,
All cares forgotten, round its hallowed walls!
For you, in presence of this little band
Gathered together on the green hill-side,
Your Pastor is emboldened to prefer
Vocal thanksgivings to the eternal King;
Whose love, whose counsel, whose commands, have made
Your very poorest rich in peace of thought
And in good works; and him, who is endowed
With scantiest knowledge, master of all truth
Which the salvation of his soul requires.
Conscious of that abundant favour showered
On you, the children of my humble care,
And this dear land, our country, while on earth
We sojourn, have I lifted up my soul,
Joy giving voice to fervent gratitude.
These barren rocks, your stern inheritance;
These fertile fields, that recompense your pains;
The shadowy vale, the sunny mountain-top;
Woods waving in the wind their lofty heads,
Or hushed; the roaring waters, and the stillThey see the offering of my lifted hands,
They hear my lips present their sacrifice,
They know if I be silent, morn or even:
For, though in whispers speaking, the full heart
Will find a vent; and thought is praise to him,
Audible praise, to thee, omniscient Mind,
From whom all gifts descend, all blessings flow I"




The Excursion


62I


This vesper-service closed, without delay,
From that exalted station to the plain
Descending, we pursued our homeward course,
In mute composure, o'er the shadowy lake,
Under a faded sky. No trace remained
Of those celestial splendours; grey the vaultPure, cloudless, ether; and the star of eve
Was wanting; but inferior lights appeared
Faintly, too faint almost for sight; and some
Above the darkened hills stood boldly forth
In twinkling lustre, ere the boat attained
Her mooring-place; where, to the sheltering tree,
Our youthful Voyagers bound fast her prow,
With prompt yet careful hands. This done, we paced
The dewy fields; but ere the Vicar's door
Was reached, the Solitary checked his steps;
Then, intermingling thanks, on each bestowed
A farewell salutation; and, the like
Receiving, took the slender path that leads
To the one cottage in the lonely dell:
But turned not without welcome promise made
That he would share the pleasures and pursuits
Of yet another summer's day, not loth
To wander with us through the fertile vales,
And o'er the mountain-wastes. "Another sun,"
Said he, " shall shine upon us, ere we part;
Another sun, and peradventure more;
If time, with free consent, be yours to give,
And season favours."
To enfeebled Power,
From this communion with uninjured Minds,
What renovation had been brought; and what
Degree of healing to a wounded spirit,
Dejected, and habitually disposed
To seek, in degradation of the Kind,
Excuse and solace for her own defects;
How far those erring notions were reformed;
And whether aught, of tendency as good
And pure, from further intercourse ensued;
This-if delightful hopes, as heretofore,
Inspire the serious song, and gentle Hearts
Cherish, and lofty Minds approve the pastMy future labours may not leave untold.




622


The Borderers


THE BORDERERS
A TRAGEDY
Composed at Racedown in Dorsetshire during the latter part of the
year 1795, and in the course of the following year. My care was
almost exclusively given to the passions and the characters, and the
position in which the persons in the Drama stood relatively to each
other, that the reader (for I had then no thought of the Stage) might be
moved, and to a degree instructed, by lights penetrating somewhat into
the depths of our nature.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
MARMADUKE.                       Forester.
OSWALD.           the Band of    ELDRED, a Peasant.
WALLACE.          Borderers      Peasant, Pilgrims, etc.
LACY.
LENNOX.      J                   IDONEA.
HERBERT.                         Female Beggar.
WILFRED, Servant to MARMADUKE.   ELEANOR, Wife to ELDRED.
Host.
SCENE-Borders of England and Scotland.
TIME-The Reign of Henry III.
Readers already acquainted with my Poems will recognise, in the
following composition, some eight or ten lines which' I have not
scrupled to retain in the places where they originally stood. It is
proper, however, to add, that they would not have been used elsewhere, if I had foreseen the time when I might be induced to publish
this Tragedy.
February 28, 1842.
ACT I.
SCENE-Road in a Wood.
WALLACE and LACY.
Lacy. The troop will be impatient; let us hie
Back to our post, and strip the Scottish Foray
Of their rich Spoil, ere they recross the Border.
-Pity that our young Chief will have no part
In this good service.
Wal.                Rather let us grieve




The Borderers


623


That, in the undertaking which has caused
His absence, he hath sought, whate'er his aim,
Companionship with One of crooked ways,
From whose perverted soul can come no good
To our confiding, open-hearted, Leader.
Lacy. True; and, remembering how the Band have
proved
That Oswald finds small favour in our sight,
Well may we wonder he has gained such power
Over our much-loved Captain.
Wal4                     I have heard
Of some dark deed to which in early life
His passion drove him-then a Voyager
Upon the midland Sea. You knew his bearing
In Palestine?
Lacy.      Where he despised alike
Mahommedan and Christian. But enough;
Let us begone-the Band may else be foiled.  [Exeunt.
Enter MARMADUKE and WILFRED.
Wi7. Be cautious, my dear Master I
Mar.                            I perceive
That fear is like a cloak which old men huddle
About their love, as if to keep it warm.
Wil. Nay, but I grieve that we should part.  This
Stranger,
For such he is —
Mar.           Your busy fancies, Wilfred,
Might tempt me to a smile; but what of him?
Wil. You know that you have saved his life.
Mar.                                   I know it.
Wil. And that he hates you!-Pardon me, perhaps
That word was hasty.
Mar.              Fy! no more of it.
Wil. Dear Master 1 gratitude's a heavy burden
To a proud Soul.-Nobody loves this OswaldYourself, you do not love him.
Mar.                      I do more,
I honour him. Strong feelings to his heart
Are natural; and from no one can be learnt
More of man's thoughts and ways than his experience
Has given him power to teach: and then for courage
And enterprise-what perils hath he shunned?
What obstacles hath he failed to overcome?




624


The Borderers


Answer these questions, from our common knowledge,
And be at rest.
Wil.         Oh, Sir!
Mar.                  Peace, my good Wilfred;
Repair to Liddesdale, and tell the Band
I shall be with them in two days, at farthest.
Wil. May He whose eye is over all protect you I [Exit.
Enter OSWALD (a bunch of flants in his hand).
Osw. This wood is rich in plants and curious simples.
Mar. (looking at them). The wild rose, and the poppy,
and the nightshade:
Which is your'favourite, Oswald?
Osw.                        That which, while it is
Strong to destroy, is also strong to heal[Lookingforward.
Not yet in sight!-We'll saunter here awhile;
They cannot mount the hill, by us unseen.
Afar. (a letter in his hand). It is no common thing when
one like you
Performs these delicate services, and therefore
I feel myself much bounden to you, Oswald;
'Tis a strange letter this!-You saw her write it?
Osw. And saw the tears with which she blotted it.
Mar. And nothing less would satisfy him?
Osw.                                  No less;
For that another in his Child's affection
Should hold a place, as if 'twere robbery,
He seemed to quarrel with the very thought.
Besides, I know not what strange prejudice
Is rooted in his mind; this Band of ours,
Which you've collected for the noblest ends,
Along the confines of the Esk and Tweed
To guard the Innocent-he calls us "Outlaws "
And, for yourself, in plain terms he asserts
This garb was taken up that indolence
Might want no cover, and rapacity
Be better fed.
far.        Ne'er may I own the heart
That cannot feel for one, helpless as he is.
Osw. Thou know'st me for a Man not easily moved,
Yet was I grievously provoked to think
Of what I witnessed.
Mar.              This day will suffice




The Borderers


625


To end her wrongs.
Osw.             But if the blind Man's tale
Should yet be true?
Mar.            Would it were possible!
Did not the soldier tell thee that himself,
And others who survived the wreck, beheld
The Baron Herbert perish in the waves
Upon the coast of Cyprus?
Osw.                   Yes, even so,
And I had heard the like before: in sooth
The tale of this his quondam Barony
Is cunningly devised; and, on the back
Of his forlorn appearance, could not fail
To make the proud and vain his tributaries,
And stir the pulse of lazy charity.
The seignories of Herbert are in Devon;
We, neighbours of the Esk and Tweed: 'tis much
The Arch-ImpostorMar.                 Treat him gently, Oswald;
Though I have never seen his face, methinks,
There cannot come a day when I shall cease
To love him. I remember, when a Boy
Of scarcely seven years' growth, beneath the Elm
That casts its shade over our village school,
'Twas my delight to sit and hear Idonea
Repeat her Father's terrible adventures,
Till all the band of playmates wept together;
And that was the beginning of my love.
And, through all converse of our later years,
An image of this old Man still was present,
When I had been most happy. Pardon me
If this be idly spoken.. Osw.              See, they come,
Two Travellers!
Mar. (points). The woman is Idonea.
Osw. And leading Herbert.
Mar.                      We must let them passThis thicket will conceal us.        [They step aside.
Enter IDONEA, leading HERBERT blind.
Idon. Dear Father, you sigh deeply; ever since
We left the willow shade by the brook-side,
Your natural breathing has been troubled.
Her.                                Nay,




626


The Borderers


You are too fearful; yet must I confess,
Our march of yesterday had better suited
A firmer step than mine.
Idon.                That dismal MoorIn spite of all the larks that cheered our path,
I never can forgive it: but how steadily
You paced along, when the bewildering moonlight
Mocked me with many a strange fantastic shape!I thought the Convent never would appear;
It seemed to move away from us: and yet,
That you are thus the fault is mine; for the air
Was soft and warm, no dew lay on the grass,
And midway on the waste ere night had fallen
I spied a Covert walled and roofed with sodsA miniature; belike some Shepherd-boy,
Who might have found a nothing-doing hour
Heavier than work, raised it: within that hut
We might have made a kindly bed of heath,
And thankfully there rested side by side
Wrapped in our cloaks, and, with recruited strength,
Have hailed the morning sun. But cheerily, Father,That staff of yours, I could almost have heart
To fling't away from you: you make no use
Of me, or of my strength;-come, let me feel
That you do press upon me. There-indeed
You are quite exhausted. Let us rest awhile
On this green bank.                   [He sits down.
Her. (after some time). Idonea, you are silent,
And I divine the cause.
Idon.               Do not reproach me:
I pondered patiently your wish and will
When I gave way to your request; and now,
When I behold the ruins of that face,
Those eyeballs dark-dark beyond hope of light,
And think that they were blasted for my sake,
The name of Marmaduke is blown away:
Father, I would not change that sacred feeling
For all this world can give.
Her.                  Nay, be composed:
Few minutes gone a faintness overspread
My frame, and I bethought me of two things
I ne'er had heart to separate-my grave,
And thee, my Child
Idon.             Believe me, honoured Sire!
'Tis weariness that breeds these gloomy fancies,




The Borderers


627


And you mistake the cause: you hear the woods
Resound with music, could you see the sun,
And look upon the pleasant face of Nature —
Her. I comprehend thee-I should be as cheerful
As if we two were twins; two songsters bred
In the same nest, my spring-time one with thine.
My fancies, fancies if they be, are such
As come, dear Child! from a far deeper source
Than bodily weariness. While here we sit
I feel my strength returning.-The bequest
Of thy kind Patroness, which to receive
We have thus far adventured, will suffice
To save thee from the extreme of penury;
But when thy Father must lie down and die
How wilt thou stand alone?
Idon..      -Is he not strong?
Is he not valiant?,:
Her.           Am I then so soon
Forgotten? have my warnings passed so quickly
Out of thy mind? My dear, my only, Child;
Thou wouldst be leaning on a broken reedThis Marmaduke- -
fidon.            O could you hear his voice:
Alas! you do not know him. He is one
(I wot not What ill tongue has wronged him with you)
All gentleness and love. His face bespeaks
A deep and simple meekness: and that Soul
Which with the motion of a virtuous act
Flashes a look of terror upon guilt,
Is, after conflict, quiet as the ocean,
By a miraculous finger, stilled at once.
Her. Unhappy Woman!
Idon.                  Nay, it was my duty
Thus much to speak; but think not I forgetDear Father! how could I forget and liveYou and the story of that doleful night
When, Antioch blazing to her topmost towers,
You rushed into the murderous flames, returned
Blind as the grave, but, as you oft have told me,
Clasping your infant Daughter to your heart.
Her. Thy Mother too!-scarce had I gained the door,
I caught her voice; she threw herself upon me,
I felt thy infant brother in her arms:
She saw my blasted face-a tide of soldiers
That instant rushed between us, and I heard




628             The Borderers
Her last death-shriek, distinct among a thousand.
Idon. Nay, Father, stop not; let me hear it all.
Her. Dear Daughter! precious relic of that time —
For my old age, it doth remain with thee
To make it what thou wilt. Thou hast been told,
That when, on our return from Palestine,
I found how my domains had been usurped,
I took thee in my arms, and we began
Our wanderings together. Providence
At length conducted us to Rossland,-there,
Our melancholy story moved a Stranger
To take thee to her home-and for myself,
Soon after, the good Abbot of St. Cuthbert's
Supplied my helplessness with food and raiment,
And, as thou know'st, gave me that humble Cot
Where now we dwell.-For many years I bore
Thy absence, till old age and fresh infirmities
Exacted thy return, and our reunion.
I did not think that, during that long absence,
My Child, forgetful of the name of Herbert,
Had given her love to a wild Freebooter,
Who here, upon the borders of the Tweed,
Doth prey alike on two distracted Countries,
Traitor to both.
Idon.        Oh, could you hear his voice!
I will not call on Heaven to vouch for me,
But let this kiss speak what is in my heart.
Enter a Peasant.
Pea. Good morrow, Strangers! If you want a Guide,
Let me have leave to serve you!
Idon.                      My Companion
Hath need of rest; the sight of Hut or Hostel
Would be most welcome.
Pea.                 Yon white hawthorn gained,
You will look down into a dell, and there
Will see an ash from which a sign-board hangs;
The house is hidden by the shade. Old Man,
You seem worn out with travel-shall I support you?
Her. I thank you; but, a resting-place so near,
'Twere wrong to trouble you.
Pea.                    God speed you both.
[Exit Peasant.
Her. Idonea, we must part. Be-not alarmed



The Borderers


629


'Tis but for a few days-a thought has struck me.
Idon. That I should leave you at this house, and thence
Proceed alone. It shall be so; for strength
Would fail you ere our journey's end be reached.
[Exit HERBERT supported by IDONEA.
Re-enter MARMADUKE and OSWALD.
Mar. This instant will we stop himOsw.                                 Be not hasty,
For, sometimes, in despite of my conviction,
He tempted me to think the Story true;
'Tis plain he loves the Maid, and what he said
That savoured of aversion to thy name
Appeared the genuine colour of his soulAnxiety lest mischief should befall her
After his death.
Mar.         I have been much deceived.
Osw. But sure he loves the Maiden, and never love
Could find delight to nurse itself so strangely,
Thus to torment her with inventions /-deathThere must be truth in this.
Mar.                   Truth in his story!
He must have felt it then, known what it was,
And in such wise to rack her gentle heart
Had been a tenfold cruelty.
Osw.                   Strange pleasures
Do we poor mortals cater for ourselves!
To see him thus provoke her tenderness
With tales of weakness and infirmity!
I'd wager on his life for twenty years.
Mar. We will not waste an hour in such a cause.
Osw. Why, this is noble! shake her off at once.
Mar. Her virtues are his instruments.-A Man
Who has so practised on the world's cold sense,
May well deceive his Child-what! leave her thus,
A prey to a deceiver?-no-no-no'Tis but a word and then
Osw.                     Something is here
More than we see, or whence this strong aversion?
Marmaduke! I suspect unworthy tales
Have reached his ear-you have had enemies.
Mar. Enemies!-of his own coinage.
Osw.                              That may be,
But wherefore slight protection such as you




630             The    Borderers
Have power to yield? perhaps he looks elsewhere.I am perplexed.,
Mar.         What hast thou heard or seen?
Osw. No-no-the thing stands clear of mystery;
(As you have said) he coins himself the slander
With which he taints her ear;-for a plain reason;
He dreads the presence of a virtuous man
Like you; he knows your eye would search his heart,
Your justice stamp upon his evil deeds
The punishment they merit. All is plain:
It cannot beMar.          What cannot be?
Osw.                         Yet that a Father
'Should in his love admit no rivalship,
And torture thus the heart of his own Child -
Mar. Nay, you abuse my friendship!
Osw.                             Heaven forbid!There was a circumstance, trifling indeedIt struck me at the time-yet I believe
I never should have thought of it again
But for the scene which we by chance have witnessed.
Mar. What is your meaning?
Osw.                       Two days gone I saw,
Though at a distance and he was disguised,
Hovering round Herbert's door, a man whose figure
Resembled much that cold voluptuary,
The villain, Clifford. Hie hates you, and he knows
Where he can stab you deepest.
Mar.                       Clifford never
Would stoop to skulk about a Cottage doorIt could not be.
Osw..       Andyet I now remember,
That, when your praise was warm upon my tongue,
And the blind Man was told how you had rescued
A maiden from the ruffian violence
Of this same Clifford, he became impatient
And would not hear me.
Mar.                 No-it cannot beI dare not trust myself with such a thoughtYet whence this strange aversion? You are a man
Not used to rash conjectures —
Osw.                        If you deem it
A thing worth further notice, we must act
With caution, sift the matter artfully.. [Exeunt MARMADUKE and OSWALD.




The Botderers


631


SCENE-The door of the Hostel.
HERBERT, IDONEA, and Host.
Her. (seated). As I am dear to you, remember, Child I
This last request,:
Idon.          You know me, Sire; farewell!
Her. And are you going then? Come, come, Idonea,
We must not part,-I have measured many a league
When these old limbs had need of rest,-and now
I will not play the sluggard.
Idon.                   Nay, sit down.
[Turning to Host.
Good Host, such tendance as you would expect
From your own Children, if yourself were sick,
Let this old Man find at your hands; poor Leader,
[Looking at the dog.
We soon shall meet again. If thou neglect
This charge of thine, then ill befall thee!-Look,
The little fool is loth to stay behind.
Sir Host! by all the love you bear to courtesy,
Take care of him, and feed the truant well.
Host. Fear not, I will obey you;-but One so young,
And One so fair, it goes against my heart
That you should travel unattended, Lady!I have a palfrey and a groom: the lad
Shall squire you, (would it not be better, Sir'?)
And for less fee than I would let him run
For any lady I have seen this twelvemonth.
Idon. You know, Sir, I have been too long your guard
Not to have learnt to laugh at little fears.
Why, if a wolf should leap from out a thicket,
A look of mine would send him scouring back,
Unless I differ from the thing I am
When you are by my side.
Her.                   Idonea, wolves
Are, not the enemies that move my fears.
Idon. No more, I pray, of this. Three days at farthest
Will bring me back-protect him, Saints-farewell!
[Exit IDONEA,Host. 'Tis never drought with us-St. Cuthbert and his
Pilgrims,
Thanks to them, are to.us a stream of comfort:
Pity the Maiden did not wait a while;
She could not, Sir, have:failed of company.




632


The Borderers


Her. Now she is gone, I fain would call her back.
Host (calling). Holla!
Her.                 No, no, the business must be
done.What means this riotous noise?
Host.                      The villagers
Are flocking in-a wedding festivalThat's all-God save you, Sir.
Enter OSWALD.
Osw.                    Ha! as I live,
The Baron Herbert.
Host.            Mercy, the Baron Herbert!
Osw. So far into your journey! on my life,
You are a lusty Traveller. But how fare you?
Her. Well as the wreck I am permits. And you, Sir?
Osw. I do not see Idonea.
Her.                     Dutiful Girl,
She is gone before, to spare my weariness.
But what has brought you hither?
Osw.                        A slight affair,
That will be soon despatched.
Her.                     Did Marmaduke
Receive that letter?
Osw.             Be at peace.-The tie
Is broken, you will hear no more of him.
Her. This is true comfort, thanks a thousand times!That noise!-would I had gone with her as far
As the Lord Clifford's Castle: I have heard
That, in his milder moods, he has expressed
Compassion for me. His influence is great
With Henry, our good King;-the Baron might
Have heard my suit, and urged my plea at Court.
No matter-he's a dangerous Man.-That noise!'Tis too disorderly for sleep or rest.
Idonea would have fears for me,-the Convent
Will give me quiet lodging. You have a boy, good Host,
And he must lead me back.
Osw.                   You are most lucky;
I have been waiting in the wood hard by
For a companion-here he comes; our journey
Enter MARMADUKE.
Lies on your way; accept us as your Guides.




The Borderers                  633
Her. Alas! I creep so slowly.
Osw.                       Never fear;
We'll not complain of that.
Her.                   My limbs are stiff
And need repose. Could you but wait.an hour?
Osw. Most willingly!-Come, let me lead you in,
And, while you take your rest, think not of us;
We'll stroll into the wood; lean on my arm.
[Conducts HERBERT into the house. Exit MARMADUKE.
Enter Villagers.
Osw. (to himself coming out of the Hostel. I have prepared a most apt InstrumentThe Vagrant must, no doubt, be loitering somewhere
About this ground; she hath a tongue well skilled,
By mingling natural matter of her own
With all the daring fictions I have taught her,
To win belief, such as my plot requires.  [Exit OSWALD.
Enter more Villagers, a Musician among them.
Host (to them). Into the court, my Friend, and perch
yourself
Aloft upon the elm-tree. Pretty Maids,
Garlands and flowers, and cakes and merry thoughts,
Are here, to send the sun into the west
More speedily than you belike would wish.
SCENE changes to the wood adjoining the HostelMARMADUKE and OSWALD entering.
Mar. I would fain hope that we deceive ourselves:
When first I saw him sitting there, alone,
It struck upon my heart I know not how.
Osw. To-day will clear up all.-You marked a Cottage,
That ragged Dwelling, close beneath a rock
By the brook-side: it is the abode of One,
A Maiden innocent till ensnared by Clifford,
Who soon grew weary of her; but, alas!
What she had seen and suffered turned her brain.
Cast off by her Betrayer, she dwells alone,
Nor moves her hands to any needful work:
She eats her food which every day the peasants
Bring to her hut; and so the Wretch has lived




634             The Borderers
Ten years; and no one ever heard her voice;
But every night at the first stroke of twelve
She quits her house, and, in the neighbouring Churchyard
Upon the self-same spot, in rain or storm,
She paces out the hour 'twixt twelve and oneShe paces round and round an Infant's grave,
And in the churchyard sod her feet have worn
A hollow ring; they say it is knee-deep ---
Ah! what is here?
[A female Beggar rises up, rubbing her eyes as if in
sleep-a Child in her arms.
Beg.            Oh! Gentlemen, I thank you;:
I've had the saddest dream that ever troubled
The heart of living creature.-My poor Babe
Was crying, as I thought, crying for bread
When I had none to give him; whereupon,
I put a slip of foxglove in his hand,
Which pleased him so, that he was hushed at once:
When, into one of those same spotted bells
A bee came darting, which the Child with joy
Imprisoned there, and held it to his ear,
And suddenly grew black, as he would die.
Mar. We have no time for this, my babbling Gossip;
Here's what will comfort you.       [Gives her money.
Beg.                     The Saints reward you
For this good deed!-Well, Sirs, this passed away;
And afterwards I fancied, a strange dog,
Trotting alone along the beaten road,
Came to my child as by my side he slept
And, fondling, licked his face, then on a sudden
Snapped fierce to make a morsel of his head:
But here he is, [kissing the Child] it must have been a
dream.
Osw. When next inclined to sleep, take my advice,
And put your head, good Woman, under cover.
Beg. Oh, Sir, you would not talk thus, if you knew
What life is this of ours, how sleep will master
The weary-worn.-You gentlefolk have got
Warm chambers to your wish. I'd rather be
A stone than what I am.-But two nights gone,
The darkness overtook me-wind and rain
Beat hard upon my head-and yet I saw
A glow-worm, through the covert of the furze,
Shine calmly as if nothing ailed the sky:




The Bo3rderers


635


At which I half accused the God in Heaven. —
You must forgive me.
Osw.             Ay, and-if you think
The Fairies are to blame, and you should chide
Your favourite saint-no matter-this good day
Has made amends.
Beg.            Thanks to you both; but, 0 sir!
How would you like to travel on whole hours
As I have done, my eyes upon the ground,
Expecting still, I knew not how, to find
A piece of money glittering through the dust.
Mar. This woman is a prater. Pray, good Lady!
Do you tell fortunes?
Beg.              Oh, Sir, you are like the rest.
This Little-one-it cuts me to the heartWell! they might turn a beggar from their doors,
But there are Mothers who can see the Babe
Here at my breast, and ask me where I bought it:
This they can do, and look upon' my faceBut you, Sir, should be kinder.
Mar.                      Come hither, Fathers,
And learn what nature is from this poor Wretch!
Beg, Ay, Sir, there's nobody that feels for us.
Why now-but yesterday I overtook
A blind old Greybeard and accosted him,
I' th' name of all the Saints, and by the Mass
He should have used me better!-Charity.
If you can melt a rock, he is your man;:
But I'll be even with him-here again
Have I been waiting for him.
Osze.                   Well, but softly,
Who is it that hath wronged you?
Beg. -                      Mark you me;
I'll point him out;-a Maiden is his guide,
Lovely as Spring's first rose; a little dog,
Tied by a woollen cord, moves on before
With look as sad as he were dumb; the cur,
I owe him no ill will, but in good sooth
He does his Master credit.
Mar.                 As I live,
'Tis Herbert and no other!
Beg.                  'Tis a feast to see him,
Lank as a ghost and tall, his shoulders bent,
And long beard white with age-yet evermore,
As if he were the only Saint on earth,




636


The Borderers


He turns his face to heaven.
Osw.                    But why so violent
Against this venerable Man?
Beg.                     I'll tell you:
He has the very hardest heart on earth;
I had as lief turn to the Friar's school
And knock for entrance, in mid holiday.
Mar. But to your story.
Beg.                   I was saying, Sir —
Well!-he has often spurned me like a toad,
But yesterday was worse than all;-at last
I overtook him, Sirs, my Babe and I,
And begged a little aid for charity:
But he was snappish as a cottage cur.
Well then, says I-I'll out with it; at which
I cast a look upon the Girl, and felt
As if my heart would burst; and so I left him.
Osw. I think, good Woman, you are the very person
Whom, but some few days past, I saw in Eskdale,
At Herbert's door.
Beg.            Ay; and if truth were known
I have good business there.
Osw.                   I met you at the threshold,
And he seemed angry.
Beg.               Angry! well he might;
And long as I can stir I'll dog him.-Yesterday,
To serve me so, and knowing that he owes
The best of all he has to me and mine.
But 'tis all over now.-That good old Lady
Has left a power of riches; and, I say it,
If there's a lawyer in the land, the knave
Shall give me half.
Osw.            What's this?-I fear, good Woman,
You have been insolent.
Beg.                 And there's the Baron,
I spied him skulking in his peasant's dress.
Osw. How say you? in disguise?Afar.                       But what's your business
With Herbert or his Daughter?
Beg.                      Daughter! trulyBut how's the day?-I fear, my little Boy,
We've overslept ourselves.-Sirs, have you seen him?
[Ofers to go.
Mar. I must have more of this;-you shall not stir
An inch, till I am answered. Know you aught




The   Borderers                637
That doth concern this Herbert?
Beg.                        You are provoked,
And will misuse me, Sir?
Mar.                  No trifling, Woman!
Osw. You are as safe as in a sanctuary;
Speak.
Mar. Speak!
Beg.          He is a most hard-hearted Man.
Mar. Your life is at my mercy.
Beg.                         Do not harm me,
And I will tell you all!-You know not, Sir,
What strong temptations press upon the Poor.
Osw. Speak out.
Beg.             Oh, Sir, I've been a wicked Woman.
Osw. Nay, but speak out!
Beg.                     He flattered me, and said
What harvest it would bring us both; and so,
I parted with the Child.
Mar.                Parted with whom?
Beg. Idonea, as he calls her; but the Girl
Is mine.
Mar. Yours, Woman! are you Herbert's wife?
Beg. Wife, Sir! his wife-not I; my husband, Sir,
Was of Kirkoswald-many a snowy winter
We've weathered out together.' My poor Gilfred!
He has been two years in his grave.
Mar.                           Enough.
Osw. We've solved the riddle-Miscreant!
Mar.                                   Do you,
Good Dame, repair to Liddesdale and wait
For my return; be sure you shall have justice.
Osw. A lucky woman! go, you have done good service.
[Aside.
Mar. (to himself). Eternal praises on the power that
saved her!Osw. (gives her money). Here's for your little boy-and
when you christen him
I'll be his Godfather.
Beg.              Oh, Sir, you are merry with me.
In grange or farm this Hundred scarcely owns
A dog that does not know me.-These good Folks,
For love of God, I must not pass their doors;
But I'll be back with my best speed: for youGod bless and thank you both, my gentle Masters.
[Exit Beggar.




638              The Borderers
Mar. (to himself). The _cruel Viper!-Poor devoted
Maidi
Now I do love thee.
Osw.             I am thunderstruck.
Mar. Where is she —holla!
[Calling to the Beggar, who returns; he looks at her
stedfastly.
You are Idonea's mother?Nay, be not terrified-it does me good
To look upon you.
Osw. (interrupting). In a peasant's dress
You saw, who was it?
Beg.               Nay, I dare not speak;
He is a man, if it should come to his ears
I never shall be heard of more.
Osw.:                     Lord Clifford?
Beg. What can I do? believe me, gentle Sirs,
I love her, though I dare not call her daughter.
Osw. Lord Clifford-ddid you see him talk with Herbert?
Beg. Yes, to my sorrow —under thegreat oak
At Herbert's door-and when he stood beside
The blind Man —at the silent Girl he looked
With such a look —it makes me tremble, Sir,
To think of it.
Osw.         Enough! you may depart.
Mar. (to himself). Father!-to God himself we cannot
give
A holier name; and, inder such a mask,
To lead a Spirit, spotless as the blessed,
To that abhorred den of brutish vice!Oswald, the firm foundation of ty life
Is going from under me; these strange discoveries —
Looked at from every point of fear or hope,
Duty, or love-'-ifvolve, I feel, my' ruin;..-: -.-         -.    — }
ACT IIt.
SCENE-A Chamber in the Hostel-OSWALD alone, rising
from a Table-on Which he had been writing.
Osw. They chose him; for their Chief!-what covert part
He, in the preference, modest Youth, might take,
I neither know nor care, ~ The insult bred
More of contempt than hatred; both are flown;:
That either e'er existed is my shame:




The Borderers                  63i
'Twas a dull spark-a most unnatural fire
That died the moment the air breathed upon it.
-These fools of feeling are mere birds of winter
That haunt some barren island of the north,
Where, if a famishing man stretch forth his hand,
They think it is to feed them. I have left him
To solitary meditation; —now
For a few swelling phrases, and a flash
Of truth, enough to dazzle and to blind,
And he is mine for ever-here he comes.
Enter MARMADUKE.
Mar. These ten years she has moved her lips all day
And never speaks!
Osw.            Who is it?
Mar.                       I have seen her,
Osw. Oh! the poor tenant of that ragged homestead,
Her whom the Monster, Clifford) drove to madness.
Mar. I met a peasant near the spot; he told me,
These ten years she had sate all day alone
Within those empty walls.
Osw.                  I too have seen her j
Chancing to pass this way some six months gone,
At midnight, I betook me to the Churchyard:
The moon shone clear, the air was still, so still
The trees were silent as the graves beneath them,
Long did I watch, and saw her pacing found
Upon the self-same spot, still round and round,
Her lips for ever moving.
Mar.                  At her door
Rooted I stood; for, looking at the wotnan,
I thought I saw the skeleton of Idonea.
Osw. But the pretended Father --
Mar.                             Earthly law
Measures not crimes like his.
Osw.                    We rank not, happily,
With those who take the spirit of their rule
From that soft class of devotees who feel
Reverence for life so deeply, that they spare
The verminous brood, and cherish what they spare
While feeding on their bodies, Would that Idonea
Were present, to the end that we might hear
What she can urge in his defence; she loves him.
Mar. Yes, loves him; 'tis a truth that multiplies




-640


The Borderers


His guilt a thousand-fold.
Osw.                 'Tis most perplexing:
What must be done?
Mar.              We will conduct her hither;
These walls shall witness it-from first to last
He shall reveal himself.
Osw.                Happy are we,
Who live in these disputed tracts, that own
No law but what each man makes for himself;
Here justice has indeed a field of triumph.
Mar. Let us be gone and bring her hither;-here
The truth shall be laid open, his guilt proved
Before her face. The rest be left to me.
Osw. You will be firm: but though we well may trust
The issue to the justice of the cause,
Caution must not be flung aside; remember,
Yours is no common -life. Self-stationed here
Upon these savage confines, we have seen you
Stand like an isthmus 'twixt two stormy seas
That oft have checked their fury at your bidding.
'Mid the deep holds of Solway's mossy waste,
Your single virtue has transformed a Band
Of fierce barbarians into Ministers
Of peace and order. -.Aged mhen with tears
Have- blessed their steps, the fatherless retire
For shelter to their banners. But it is,
As you must needs have deeply felt, it is
In darkness and in tempest that we seek
The majesty of Him who rules the, world.
Benevolence, that has not heart to use
The wholesome ministry of pain and evil,
Becomes at last weak and contemptible.
Your generous qualities have won due praise,          4
But vigorous Spirits look for something more
Than Youth's spontaneous products; and to-day
You will not disappoint them; and hereafter —
Mar. You are wasting words; hear me then, once for all:
You are a Man-and therefore, if compassion,
Which to our kind is natural as life,
Be known unto you, you will love this Woman,
Even as I do; but I should loathe the light,
If I could think one weak or partial feelingOsw. You will forgive meAlffar.                     If I ever knew
My heart, could penetrate its inmost core,




The Borderers


641


'Tis at this moment. Oswald, I have loved
To be the friend and father of the oppressed,
A comforter of sorrow;-there is something
Which looks like a transition in my soul,
And yet it is not.-Let us lead him hither.
Osw. Stoop for a moment; 'tis an act of justice;
And where's the triumph if the delegate
Must fall in the execution of his office?
The deed is done-if you will have it soHere where we stand-that tribe of vulgar wretches
(You saw them gathering for the festival)
Rush in-the villains seize usMar.                         Seize 1
Osw.                                Yes, theyMen who are little given to sift and weighWould wreak on us the passion of the moment.
Mar. The cloud will soon disperse-farewell-but stay,
Thou wilt relate the story.
Osw.                  Am I neither
To bear a part in this Man's punishment,
Nor be its witness?
MAfar.          I had many hopes
That were most dear to me, and some will bear
To be transferred to thee.
Osw.                  When I'm dishonoured!
Mar. I would preserve thee. How may this be done?
Osw. By showing that you look beyond the instant,
A few leagues hence we shall have open ground,
And nowhere upon earth is place so fit
To look upon the deed. Before we enter
The barren Moor, hangs from a beetling rock
The shattered Castle in which Clifford oft
Has held infernal orgies-with the gloom,
And very superstition of the place,
Seasoning his wickedness. The Debauchee
Would there perhaps have gathered the first fruits
Of this mock Father's guilt.
Enter Host conducting HERBERT.
Host.                  The Baron Herbert
Attends your pleasure.
Osw. (to Host).    We are ready(to HERBERT) Sir!
I hope you are refreshed-I have just written
Y




642


The Borderers


A notice for your Daughter, that she may know
What is become of you.-You'll sit down and sign it;
'Twill glad her heart to see her father's signature.
[Gives the letter he had written.
Her. Thanks for your care.
[Sits down and writes. Exit Host.
Osw. (aside to MARMADUKE). Perhaps it would be useful
That you too should subscribe your name.
[MARMADUKE overlooks HEERBT-then writesexamines the letter eagerly.
Mar. I cannot leave this paper. [He puts it up, agitated.
Osw. (aside).                Dastard! Come.
[MARMADUKE goes towards HERBERT and supports him
-MARMADUKE tremblingly beckons OSWALD to take
his place.
Mar. (as he quits HERBERT). There is a palsy in his
limbs-he shakes.
[Exeunt OSWALD and HERBERT-MARMADUKE
following.
SCENE changes to a Wood-a Group of Pilgrims and
IDONEA with them.
First Pil. A grove of darker and more lofty shade I
never saw.
Sec. Pil.      The music of the birds
Drops deadened from a roof so thick with leaves.
Old Pil. This news I It made my heart leap up with joy.
Idon. I scarcely can believe it.
Old Pil.                    Myself, I heard
The Sheriff read, in open Court, a letter
Which purported it was the royal pleasure
The Baron Herbert, who, as was supposed,             4
Had taken refuge in this neighbourhood,
Should be forthwith restored. The hearing, Lady,
Filled my dim eyes with tears.-When I returned
From Palestine, and brought with me a heart,
Though rich in heavenly, poor in earthly, comfort,
I met your Father, then a wandering Outcast:
He had a Guide, a Shepherd's boy; but grieved
He was that One so young should pass his youth
In such sad service; and he parted with him.
We joined our tales of wretchedness together,
And begged our daily bread from door to door.
I talk familiarly to you, sweet Lady!    -




The Borderers                 643
For once you loved me.
Idon.               You shall back with me
And see your Friend again. The good old Man
Will be rejoiced to greet you.
Old Pil.                It seems but yesterday
That a fierce storm o'ertook us, worn with travel,
In a deep wood remote from any town.
A cave that opened to the road presented
A friendly shelter, and we entered in.
Idon. And I was with you?
Old Pil.                 If indeed 'twas youBut you were then a tottering Little-oneWe sate us down. The sky grew dark and darker:
I struck my flint, and built up a small fire
With rotten boughs and leaves, such as the winds
Of many autumns in the cave had piled.
Meanwhile the storm fell heavy on the woods;
Our little fire sent forth a cheering warmth
And we were comforted, and talked of comfort;
But 'twas an angry night, and o'er our heads
The thunder rolled in peals that would have made
A sleeping man uneasy in his bed.
O Lady, you have need to love your Father.
His voice-methinks I hear it now, his voice
When, after a broad flash that filled the cave,
He said to me, that he had seen his Child,
A face (no cherub's face more beautiful)
Revealed by lustre brought with it from Heaven;
And it was you, dear Lady!
Idon.                  God be praised,
That I have been his comforter till now!
And will be so through every change of fortune
And every sacrifice his peace requires.Let us be gone with speed, that he may hear
These joyful tidings from no lips but mine.
[Exeunt IDONEA and Pilgrims.
SCENE-The Area of a half-ruined Castle-on one side the
entrance to a dungeon-OswALD and MARMADUKJEp:ang
backwards andforwards.
Mar. 'Tis a wild night.
Osw.                   I'd give my cloak and bonnet
For sight of a warm fire.
Mar.                 The wind blows keen;
My hands are numb.




644


The Borderers


Osw.             Ha! ha! 'tis nipping cold.
[Blozwing his fingers.
I long for news of our brave Comrades; Lacy
Would drive those Scottish Rovers to their dens
If once they blew a horn this side the Tweed.
Mar. I think I see a second range of Towers;
This castle has another Area-come,
Let us examine it.
Oszew.         'Tis a bitter night;
I hope Idonea is well housed. That horseman,
Who at full speed swept by us where the wood
Roared in the tempest, was within an ace
Of sending to his grave our precious Charge:
That would have been a vile mischance.
Mar.                              It would.
Osw. Justice had been most cruelly defrauded.
Mar. Most cruelly.
Osw.              As up the steep we clomb,
I saw a distant fire in the north-east;
I took it for the blaze of Cheviot Beacon:
With proper speed our quarters may be gained
To-morrow evening.
[Looks restlessly towards the mouth of the dungeon.
Mar.             When, upon the plank,
I had led him 'cross the torrent, his voice blessed me:
You could not hear, for the foam beat the rocks
With deafening noise,-the benediction fell
Back on himself; but changed into a curse.
Osw. As well indeed it might.
Mar.                       And this you deem
The fittest place?
Osw. (aside).  He is growing pitiful.
Mar. (listening). What an odd moaning that is!Osw.                                   Mighty odd
The wind should pipe a little, while we stand
Cooling our heels in this way!-I'll begin
And count the stars.
Mar. (still listening). That dog of his, you are sure,
Could not come after us-he must have perished;
The torrent would have dashed an oak to splinters,
You said you did not like his looks-that he
Would trouble us; if he were here again,
I swear the sight of him would quail me more
Than twenty armies.
Osw.             How?




The Borderers


645


Mar.                   The old blind Man,
When you had told him the mischance, was troubled
Even to the shedding of some natural tears
Into the torrent over which he hung,
Listening in vain.
Osw.          He has a tender heart!
[OSWALD offers to go down into the dungeon.
Mar. How now, what mean you?
Osw.                          Truly, I was going
To waken our stray Baron. Were there not
A farm or dwelling-house within five leagues,
We should deserve to wear a cap and bells,
Three good round years, for playing the fool here
In such a night as this.
Mar.               Stop, stop.
Osw.                          Perhaps,
You'd better like we should descend together,
And lie down by his side-what say you to it?
Three of us-we should keep each other warm:
I'll answer for it that our four-legged friend
Shall not disturb us; further I'll not engage;
Come, come, for manhood's sake!
Mar.                       These drowsy shiverings,
This mortal stupor which is creeping over me,
What do they mean? were this my single body
Opposed to armies, not a nerve would tremble:
Why do I tremble now?-Is not the depth
Of this Man's crimes beyond the reach of thought?
And yet, in plumbing the abyss for judgment,
Something I strike upon which turns my mind
Back on herself, I think, again-my breast
Concentres all the terrors of the Universe:
I look at him and tremble like a child.
Osm. Is it possible?
Mar.               One thing you noticed not:
Just as we left the glen a clap of thunder
Burst on the mountains with hell-rousing force.
This is a time, said he, when guilt may shudder;
But there's a Providence for them who walk
In helplessness, when innocence is with them.
At this audacious blasphemy, I thought
The spirit of vengeance seemed to ride the air.
Osw. Why are you not the man you were that moment?
[He draws MARMADUKE to the dungeon.
Mar. You say he was asleep, -look at this arm,




646


The Borderers


And tell me if 'tis fit for such: a work.
Oswald, Oswald!                 [Leans upon OSWALLy.
Osw.          This is some sudden seizure!
Mar. A most strange faintness,-will you'hunt me out
A draught of water?
Osw.            Nay, to see you thus
Moves me beyond my bearing.-I will try
To gain the torrent's brink.          E iit iOSWALD.
Mar. (after. apau.se).  It seems an age
Since that Man left me.-No, I am not lost.
Her. (at the mouth of the dungeon). Give me your hand;
where are you, Friends? and tell me
How goes the night.
Mar.            'Tis hard to measure time,
In such a weary night, and such a place.
Her. I do not hear the voice of my friend Oswald.
Mar. A minute past, he went to fetch a draught
Of water from the torrent. 'Tis, you'll say,
A cheerless beverage  -
Her.              How good it was in you  -
To stay behind!-Hearing at first no, answer,
I was alarmed.
d: Mar. -    No, wonder; this is a place
That well may put some fears into your heart.
Her. Why so? a roofless rock had been a comifort,
Storm-beaten and bewildered as we were;
And in a night like this, to lend your cloaks
To make a-bed for me!-My Girl- will weep
When she is told of it.
Mar.               This Daughter of yours
Is very dear to you.: -
Her.             Oh i but you are yourng;
Over your head twice twenty years must roll,
With all their natural weight of sorrow and pain,
Ere can be known to you how much a Father
May love his Child..
Mar.            Thank you, old Man, for this i [Aside.
Her. Fallenam I, and worn out, a useless Man;
Kindly have you protected me to-night,
And no return have I to make but prayers;
May you in age be blest with such a daughter tWhen from the Holy Land I had returned
Sightless; and from my heritage was driven,
A wretched Outcast-but this strain of thought
Would lead mie- to talk fondly.,




The Borderers                 647
Mar.                     Do not fear;
Your words are precious to my ears; go on.
Her. You will forgive me, but my heart runs over.
When my old Leader slipped into the flood
And perished, what a piercing outcry you
Sent after him. I have loved you ever since.
You start-where are we?
Mar.                  Oh, there is no danger;
The cold blast struck me.
Her.                  'Twas a foolish question.
Mar. But when you were an Outcast?-Heaven is just;
Your piety would not miss its due reward;
The little Orphan then would be your succour,
And do good service, though she knew it not.
Her. I turned me from the dwellings of my Fathers,
Where none but those who trampled on my rights
Seemed to remember me. To the wide world
I bore her, in my arms; her looks won pity;
She was my Raven in the wilderness,
And brought me food. Have I not cause to love her?
Mar. Yes.
Her.       More than ever Parent loved a Child?
Mar. Yes, yes.
Her.          I will not murmur, merciful God!
I will not murmur; blasted as I have been,
Thou hast left me ears to hear my Daughter's voice,
And arms to fold her to my heart. Submissively
Thee I adore, and find my rest in faith.
Enter OSWALD.
Osw. Herbert!-confusion! (aside).  Here it is, my
Friend,                     [Presents the Horn.
A charming beverage for you to carouse,
This bitter night.
Her.           Ha! Oswald! ten bright crosses
I would have given, not many minutes gone,
To have heard your voice.
Osw.                 Your couch, I fear, good Baron,
Has been but comfortless; and yet that place,
When the tempestuous wind first drove us hither,
Felt warm as a wren's nest. You'd better turn
And under covert rest till break of day,
Or till the storm abate.
(To MARMADUKE aside). He has restored you.
No doubt you have-been nobly entertained?




648             The    Borderers
But soft!-how came he forth? The Night-mare Conscience
Has driven him out of harbour?
Mar.                       I believe
You have guessed right.
Her.                The trees renew their murmur:
Come, let us house together.
[OSWALD conducts him  to the dungeon.
Osw. (returns).        Had I not
Esteemed you worthy to conduct the affair
To its most fit conclusion, do you think
I would so long have struggled with my Nature,
And smothered all that's man in me?-away!
[Looking towards the dungeon.
This man's the property of him who best
Can feel his crimes. I have resigned a privilege;
It now becomes my duty to resume it.
Mar. Touch not a fingerOsw.                      What then must be done?
Mar. Which way soe'er I turn, I am perplexed.
Osw. Now, on my life, I grieve for you. The misery
Of doubt is insupportable. Pity, the facts
Did not admit of stronger evidence;
Twelve honest men, plain men, would set us right;
Their verdict would abolish these weak scruples.
Mar. Weak! I am weak-there does my torment lie,
Feeding itself.
Osw.       Verily, when he said
How his old heart would leap to hear her steps,
You thought his voice the echo of Idonea's.
Mar. And'never heard a sound so terrible.
Osw. Perchance you think so now?
Mar.                     ~      I cannot do it:
Twice did I spring to grasp his withered throat,
When such a sudden weakness fell upon me,
I could have dropped asleep upon his breast.
Osw. Justice-is there not thunder in the word?
Shall it be law to stab the petty robber
Who aims but at our purse; and shall this ParricideWorse is he far, far worse (if foul dishonour
Be worse than death) to that confiding Creature
Whom he to more than filial love and duty
Hath falsely trained-shall he fulfil his purpose?
But you are fallen.
Mar.            Fallen should I be indeedMurder-perhaps asleep, blind, old, alone,




The Borderers                 649
Betrayed, in darkness! Here to strike the blowAway! away!-                  [Flings away his sword.
Osw.            Nay, I have done with you:
We'll lead him to the Convent. He shall live,
And she shall love him. With unquestioned title
He shall be seated in his Barony,
And we too chant the praise of his good deeds.
I now perceive we do mistake our masters,
And most despise the men who best can teach us:
Henceforth it shall be said that bad men only
Are brave: Clifford is brave; and that old Man
Is brave.
[Taking MARMADUKE'S sword and giving it to him.
To Clifford's arms he would have led
His Victim-haply to this desolate house.
Mar. (advancing to the dungeon). It must be ended!Osw.                      Softly; do not rouse him;
He will deny it to the last. He lies
Within the Vault, a spear's length to the left.
[MARMADUKE descends to the dungeon.
(Alone.) The Villains rose in mutiny to destroy me;
I could have quelled the Cowards, but this Stripling
Must needs step in, and save my life. The look
With which he gave the boon-I see it now!
The same that tempted me to loathe the gift.For this old venerable Greybeard-faith
'Tis his own fault if he hath got a face
Which doth play tricks with them that look on it:
'Twas this that put it in my thoughts-that countenanceHis staff-his figure-Murder!-what, of whom?
We kill a worn-out horse, and who but women
Sigh at the deed? Hew down a withered tree,
And none look grave but dotards. He may live
To thank me for this service. Rainbow arches,
Highways of dreaming passion, have too long,
Young as he is, diverted wish and hope
From the unpretending ground we mortals tread;Then shatter the delusion, break it up
And set him free. What follows? I have learned
That things will work to ends the slaves o' the world
Do never dream of. I have been what heThis Boy-when he comes forth with bloody handsMight envy, and am now,-but he shall know
What I am now-         [Goes and listens at the dungeon.
Praying or parleying?-tut!
Y2




650


The Borderers


Is he not eyeless? He has been half-dead
These fifteen years —
Enterfemale Beggar with two or three of her Companions.
(Turning abruptly.)  Ha I speak-what Thing art thou?
(Recognises her.)  Heavens-! my good Friend!  [To her.
Beg.                      Forgive me, gracious Sir!Osw. (to her com}panions). Begone, ye Slaves, or I will
raise a whirlwind
And send ye dancing to the clouds, like leaves.
[They retire affrighted.
Beg. Indeed we meant no harm; we lodge sometimes
In this deserted Castle — repent me.
[OSWALD goes to the dungeon —listens —returns to the Beggar.
Osw. Woman, thou hast a helpless Infant-keep
Thy secret for its sake, or verily
That wretched life of thine shall be the forfeit.
Beg. I do repent me, Sir; I fear the curse
Of that blind Man. 'Twas not your money, SirOsw. Begone!
Beg. (going). There is some wicked deed in hand: [A4side
Would I could find the old Man and his Daughter.
[Exit Beggar.
MARMADUKE re-entersfrom the dungeon.
Osw. It is all over then; —your foolish fears
Are hushed to sleep, by your own act and deed,
Made quiet as he is.
-Mar. -          Why came you down?
And when I felt your hand upon my arm
And spake to you, why did you give no answer?
Feared you to waken him? he must have been
In a deep sleep. I whispered to him thrice.
There are the strangest echoes in that place!
Osw. Tut! let them gabble till the day of doom.
Mar. Scarcely, by groping, had I reached the Spot,
When round my' wrist I felt a cord drawn tight,
As if the blind Man's dog were pulling at it.
Osw. But after that?
ar.    -       The features of Idonea
Lurked in his face ---
Osw.                Pshaw! Never to these eyes:
Will retribution show itself again
With aspect so inviting. Why forbid me
To share your triumph?




The Borderers


65I


Mar.                 Yes, her very look,
Smiling in sleep -
Osw.             A pretty feat of Fancy!
Mar. Though but a glimpse, it sent me to my prayers.
Osw. Is he alive?
Mar.              What mean you? who alive?
Osw. Herbert! since you will have it, Baron Herbert;
He who will gain his Seignory when Idonea
Hath become Clifford's harlot-is he living?
Mfar. The old Man in that dungeon is alive..
Osw. Henceforth, then, will I never in camp or field
Obey you more. Your weakness, to the Band,
Shall be proclaimed: brave Men, they all shall hear it.
You a protector of humanity!
Avenger you of outraged innocence!
Mar. 'Twas dark-dark as the grave; yet did I see,
Saw him-his face turned toward me; and I tell thee
Idonea's filial countenance was there
To baffle me-it put me to my prayers.
Upwards I cast my eyes, and, through a crevice,
Beheld a star twinkling above my head,
And, by the living God, I could not do it. [Sinks exhausted.
Osw. (to himself). Now may I perish if this turn do more
Than make me change my course.
(To MARMADUKE.)                Dear Marmaduke,
My words were rashly spoken; I recall them:
I feel my error; shedding human blood
Is a most serious thing.
Mar.                Not I alone,
Thou too art deep in guilt.
Osw.                   We have indeed
Been most presumptuous. There is guilt in this,
Else could so strong a mind have ever known
These trepidations? Plain it is that Heaven
Has marked out this foul Wretch as one whose crimes
Must never come before a mortal judgment-seat,
Or be chastised by mortal instruments.
Mar. A thought that's worth a thousand worlds!
[Goes towards the dungeon.
Osw.                                      I grieve
That, in my zeal, I have caused you so much pain.
Mar. Think not of that! 'tis over-we are safe.
Osw. (as if to himself, yet speaking aloud). The truth is
hideous, but how stifle it?
[ Turning to MARMADUKE.




652             The    Borderers
Give me your sword-nay, here are stones and fragments,
The least of which would beat out a man's brains;
Or you might drive your head against that wall.
No! this is not the place to hear the tale:
It should be told you pinioned in your bed,
Or on some vast and solitary plain
Blown to you from a trumpet.
Mar.                     Why talk thus?
Whate'er the monster brooding in your breast
I care not: fear I have none, and cannot fear[The sound of a horn is heard.
That horn again-'Tis some one of our Troop;
What do they here? Listen!
Osw.                     What! dogged like thieves!
Enter WALLACE and LACY, etc.
Lacy. You are found at last, thanks to the vagrant Troop
For not misleading us.
Osw. (looking at WALLACE). That subtle GreybeardI'd rather see my father's ghost.
Lacy (to MARMADUKE).       My Captain,
We come by order of the Band. Belike
You have not heard that Henry has at last
Dissolved the Barons' League, and sent abroad
His Sheriffs with fit force to reinstate
The genuine owners of such Lands and Baronies
As, in these long commotions, have been seized.
His Power is this way tending. It befits us
To stand upon our guard, and with our swords
Defend the innocent.
Mar.              Lacy! we look
But at the surfaces of things; we hear
Of towns in flames, fields ravaged, young and old
Driven out in troops to want and nakedness;
Then grasp our swords and rush upon a cure
That flatters us, because it asks not thought:
The deeper malady is better hid;
The world is poisoned at the heart.
Lacy.                         What mean you?
Wal. (whose eye has been fixed suspiciously upon OSWALD).
Ay, what is it you mean?
Mar.                     -Hark'e, my Friends;[Appearing gay.
Were there a Man who, being weak and helpless
And most forlorn, should bribe a Mother, pressed




The   Borderers               653
By penury, to yield him up her Daughter,
A little Infant, and instruct the Babe,
Prattling upon his knee, to call him Father —
Lacy. Why, if his heart be tender, that offence
I could forgive him.
Mar. (going on). And should he make the Child
An instrument of falsehood, should he teach her
To stretch her arms, and dim the gladsome light
Of infant playfulness with piteous looks
Of misery that was notLacy.                  Troth, 'tis hardBut in a world like ours
Mar. (changing his tone). This self-same ManEven while he printed kisses on the cheek
Of this poor Babe, and taught its innocent tongue
To lisp the name of Father-could he look
To the unnatural harvest of that time
When he should give her up, a Woman grown,
To him who bid the highest in the market
Of foul pollution
Lacy.             The whole visible world
Contains not such a Monster!
Mar.                     For this purpose
Should he resolve to taint her Soul by means
Which bathe the limbs in sweat to think of them;
Should he, by tales which would draw tears from iron,
Work on her nature, and so turn compassion
And gratitude to ministers of vice,
And make the spotless spirit of filial love
Prime mover in a plot to damn his Victim
Both soul and bodyWal.                'Tis too horrible;
Oswald, what say you to it?
Lacy..                 Hew him down,
And fling him to the ravens.
Mar.                    But his aspect
It is so meek, his countenance so venerable.
Wal. (with an apearce of mistrus). But how, what say
you, Oswald?
Lacy (at the same moment). Stab him, were it
Before the Altar.
Mar.         What, if he were sick,
Tottering upon the very verge of life,
And old, and blindLacy.                Blind, say you?




654


The Borderers


Osw. (coming forward).              Are we M
Or own we baby Spirits? Genuine courage
Is not an accidental quality,
A thing dependent for its casual birth
On opposition and impediment.
Wisdom, if Justice speak the word, beats down
The giant's strength; and, at the voice of Justice,
Spares not the worm. The giant and the wormShe weighs them in one scale. The wiles of woman,
And craft of age, seducing reason, first
Made weakness a protection, and obscured
The moral shapes of things. His tender cries
And helpless innocence-do they protect
The infant lamb? and shall the infirmities,
Which have enabled this enormous Culprit
To perpetrate his crimes, serve as a Sanctuary
To cover him from punishment? Shame!-Justice,
Admitting no resistance, bends alike
The feeble and the strong. She needs not here
Her bonds and chains, which make the mighty feeble.
-We recognise in this old Man a victim
Prepared already for the sacrifice.
Lacy. By heaven, his words are reason!
Osw.                              Yes, my Frii
His countenance is meek and venerable;
And, by the Mass, to see him at his prayers!I am of flesh and blood, and may I perish
When my heart does not ache to think of it!Poor Victim! not a virtue under heaven
But what was made an engine to ensnare thee;
But yet I trust, Idonea, thou art safe.
Zacy. Idonea!
Wal.          How! what? your Idonea?


-en,


ends,..


[To MARMADUKE.
AMar.                                  Mine;
But now no longer mine. You know Lord Clifford;
He is the Man to whom the Maiden-pure
As beautiful, and gentle and benign,
And in her ample heart loving even meWas to be yielded up.
Lacy.              Now, by the head
Of my own child, this Man must die; my hand,
A worthier wanting, shall itself entwine
In his grey hairs! —
Mar. (to LACY).  I love the Father in thee.




The Borderers


655


You know me, Friends; I have a heart to feel,
And I have felt, more than perhaps becomes me
Or duty sanctions.
Lacy.           We will have ample justice.
Who are we, Friends? Do we not live on ground
Where Souls are self-defended, free to grow
Like mountain oaks rocked by the stormy wind.
Mark the Almighty Wisdom, which decreed
This monstrous crime to be laid open-here,
Where Reason has an eye that she can use,
And Men alone are Umpires. To the Camp
He shall be led, and there, the Country round
All gathered to the spot, in open day
Shall Nature be avenged.
Osw.                 'Tis nobly thought;
His death will be a monument for ages.
Mar. (to LACY). I thank you for that hint. He shall be
brought
Before the Camp, and would that best and wisest
Of every country might be present. There,
His crime shall be proclaimed; and for the rest
It shall be done as Wisdom shall decide:
Meanwhile, do you two hasten back and see
That all is well prepared.
Wal.                 We will obey you.
(Aside.) But softly! we must look a little nearer.
Mar. Tell where you found us. At some future time
I will explain the cause.                  [Exeunt.
ACT III.
SCENE- The door of the Hostel, a group of Pilgrims as before;
IDONEA and the Host among them.
Host. Lady, you'll find your Father at the Convent
As I have told you: He left us yesterday
With two Companions; one of them, as seemed,
His most familiar Friend. (Going.) There was a letter
Of which I heard them speak, but that I fancy
Has been forgotten.
Idon. (to Host).  Farewell!
Host.                      Gentle pilgrims,
St. Cuthbert speed you on your holy errand.
[Exeunt IDONEA and Pilgrims.




656


The Borderers


SCENE-A desolate Moor.
OSWALD (alone).
Osw. Carry him-to the Camp! Yes, to the Camp.
Oh, Wisdom! a most wise resolve! and then,
That half a word should blow it to the winds!
This last device must end my work.-Methinks
It were a pleasant pastime to construct
A scale and table of belief-as thusTwo columns, one for passion, one for proof;
Each rises as the other falls: and first,
Passion a unit and against us-proofNay, we must travel in another path,
Or we're stuck fast for ever;-passion, then,
Shall be a unitfor us; proof-no passion!
We'll not insult thy majesty by time,
Person, and place-the where, the when, the how,
And all particulars that dull brains require
To constitute the spiritless shape of Fact,
They bow to, calling the idol, Demonstration.
A whipping to the Moralists who preach
That misery is a sacred thing: for me,
I know no cheaper engine to degrade a man,
Nor any half so sure. This Stripling's mind
Is shaken till the dregs float on the surface;
And, in the storm and anguish of the heart,
He talks of a transition in his Soul,
And dreams that he is happy. We dissect
The senseless body, and why not the mind?These are strange sights-the mind of man, upturned,
Is in all natures a strange spectacle;
In some a hideous one —hem! shall I stop?
No.-Thoughts and feelings will sink deep, but then
They have no substance. Pass but a few minutes,
And something shall be done which Memory
May touch, whene'er her Vassals are at work.
Enter MARMADUKE, from behind.
Osw. (turning to meet him). But listen, for my peaceMar.                             Why, I believe you.
Osw. But hear the proofs —
Mar.                   Ay, prove that when two peas
Lie snugly in a pod, the pod must then
Be larger than the peas-prove this-'twere matter




The   Borderers                657
Worthy the hearing. Fool was I to dream
It ever could be otherwise!
Osw.                   Last night
When I returned with water from the brook,
I overheard the Villains-every word
Like red-hot iron burnt into my heart.
Said one, " It is agreed on. The blind Man
Shall feign a sudden illness, and the Girl,
Who on her journey must proceed alone,
Under pretence of violence, be seized.
She is," continued the detested Slave,
"She is right willing-strange if she were not!They say, Lord Clifford is a savage man;
But, faith, to see him in his silken tunic,
Fitting his low voice to the minstrel's harp,
There's witchery in't. I never knew a maid
That could withstand it. True," continued he,
"When we arranged the affair, she wept a little
(Not the less welcome to my Lord for that)
And said, 'My Father he will have it so."'
Mar. I am your hearer.
Osw.                   This I caught, and more
That may not be retold to any ear,
The obstinate bolt of a small iron door
Detained them near the gateway of the Castle.
By a dim lantern's light I saw that wreaths
Of flowers were in their hands, as if designed
For festive decoration; and they said,
With brutal laughter and most foul allusion,
That they should share the banquet with their Lord
And his new Favourite.
Mar.                Misery!Osw.                           I knew
How you would be disturbed by this dire news,
And therefore chose this solitary Moor,
Here to impart the tale, of which, last night,
I strove to ease my mind, when our two Comrades,
Commissioned by the Band, burst in upon us.
Mar. Last night, when moved to lift the avenging steel,
I did believe all things were shadows-yea,
Living or dead all things were bodiless,
Or but the mutual mockeries of body,
Till that same star summoned me back again.
Now I could laugh till my ribs ached. Oh Fool!
To let a creed, built in the heart of things,




658             The Borderers
Dissolve before a twinkling atom!-Oswald,
I could fetch lessons out of wiser schools
Than you have entered, were it worth the pains.
Young as I am, I might go forth a teacher,
And you should see how deeply I could reason
Of love in all its shapes, beginnings, ends;
Of moral qualities in their diverse aspects;
Of actions, and their laws and tendencies.
Osw. You take it as it merits
Mar.                           One a King,
General or Cham, Sultan or Emperor,
Strews twenty acres of-good meadow-ground
With carcases, in lineament and shape
And substance, nothing differing from his own,
But that they cannot stand up of themselves;
Another sits i' th' sun, and by the hour
Floats kingcups in the brook-a Hero one
We call, and scorn the other as Time's spendthrift;
But have they not a world of common ground
To occupy-both fools, or wise alike,
Each in his way?
Osw.          Troth, I begin to think so.
Mar. Now for the corner-stone of my philosophy:
I would not give a denier for the man
Who, on such provocation as this earth
Yields, could not chuck his babe beneath the chin,
And send it with a fillip to its grave.
Osw. Nay, you leave me behind.
Mar.                          That such a One,
So pious in demeanour! in his look
So saintly and so pure! —Hark'e, my Friend,'
I'll plant myself before Lord Clifford's Castle,
A surly mastiff kennels at the gate,
And he shall howl and I will laugh, a medley
Most tunable.
Osw.       In faith, a pleasant scheme,;
But take your sword along with you, for that
Might in such neighbourhood find seemly use.But first, how wash our hands of this old Man?
MAar. Oh yes, that mole, that viper in the path;
Plague on my memory, him I had forgotten.
Osw. You know we left him sitting-see him yonder.
Mar. Ha! ha!Osw. As 'twill be but a moment's work,
I will stroll on; you follow when 'tis done.  [Exeunt.




The Borderers


659


SCENE changes to another part of the Moor at a short distance
-HERBERT is discovered seated on a stone.
Her. A sound of laughter, too!-'tis well-I feared,
The Stranger had some pitiable sorrow
Pressing upon his solitary heart.
Hush!-'tis the feeble and earth-loving wind
That creeps along the bells of the crisp heather.
Alas! 'tis cold-I shiver in the sunshineWhat can this mean? There is a psalm that speaks
Of God's parental mercies-with Idonea
I used to sing it.-Listen!-what foot is there?
Enter MARMADUKE.
Afar. (aside-looking at HERBERT). And I have loved
this Man! and she hath loved him!
And I loved her, and she loves the Lord Clifford!
And there it ends;-if this be not enough
To make mankind merry for evermore,
Then plain it is as day, that eyes were made
For a wise purpose-verily to weep with! [Looking round.
A pretty prospect this, a masterpiece
Of Nature, finished with most curious skill!
(To HERBERT.) Good Baron, have you ever practised tillage?
Pray tell me what this land is worth by the acre?
Her. How glad I am to hear your voice! I know not
Wherein I have offended you;-last night
I found in you the kindest of Protectors;
This morning, when I spoke of weariness,
You from my shoulder took myl scrip and threw it
About your own; but for these two hours past
Once only have you spoken, when the lark
Whirred from among the fern beneath our feet,
And I, no coward in my better days,
Was almost terrified.
Mar.             That's excellent!So, you bethought you of the many ways
In which a man may come to his end, whose crimes
Have roused all Nature up against him-pshaw!Her. For mercy's sake, is nobody in sight?
No traveller, peasant, herdsman?
rMar.                       Not a soul:
Here is a tree, ragged, and bent, and bare,
That turns its goat's-beard flakes of pea-green moss
From the stern breathing of the rough sea-wind;




66o


The Borderers


This have we, but no other company:
Commend me to the place. If a man should die
And leave his body here, it were all one
As he were twenty fathoms underground.
Her. Where is our common Friend?
Mar.                           A ghost, methinksThe Spirit of a murdered man, for instanceMight have fine room to ramble about here,
A grand domain to squeak and gibber in.
Her. Lost Man! if thou have any close-pent guilt
Pressing upon thy heart, and this the hour
Of visitation -
Mar.          A bold word from you!
Her. Restore him, Heaven!
Mar. The desperate Wretch!-A Flower,
Fairest of all flowers, was she once, but now
They have snapped her from the stem-Poh! let her lie
Besoiled with mire, and let the houseless snail
Feed on her leaves. You knew her well-ay, there,
Old Man! you were a very Lynx, you knew
The worm was in her
Her.                 Mercy! Sir, what mean you?
Mar. You have a Daughter!
Her.                       Oh that she were here!She hath an eye that sinks into all hearts,
And if I have in aught offended you,
Soon would her gentle voice make peace between us.
Mar. (aside). I do believe he weeps-I could weep too -
There is a vein of her voice that runs through his:
Even such a Man my fancy.bodied forth
From the first moment that I loved the Maid;
And for his sake I loved her more: these tearsI did not think that aught was left in me
Of what I have been-yes, I thank thee, Heaven!
One happy thought has passed across my mind.
-It may not be-I am cut off from man;
No more shall I be man-no more shall I
Have human feelings!-(To HERBERT)-NOw, for a little
more
About your Daughter!
Her.               Troops of armed men,
Met in the roads, would bless us; little children,
Rushing along in the full tide of play,
Stood silent as we passed them! I have heard
The boisterous carman, in the miry road,




The Borderers


66I


Check his loud whip and hail us with mild voice,
And speak with milder voice to his poor beasts.
Mar. And whither were you going?
Her.                            Learn, young Man,
To fear the virtuous, and reverence misery,
Whether too much for patience, or, like mine,
Softened till it becomes a gift of mercy.
AMar. Now, this is as it should be!
Her.                           I am weak!My Daughter does not know how weak I am;
And, as thou see'st, under the arch of heaven
Here do I stand, alone, to helplessness,
By the good God, our common Father, doomed!But I had once a spirit and an arm
Mar. Now, for a word about your Barony:
I fancy when you left the Holy Land,
And came to-what's your title-eh? your claims
Were undisputed!
Her. -         Like a mendicant,
Whom no one comes to rieet, I stood alone;I murmured-but, remembering Him who feeds
The pelican and ostrich of the desert,
From my own threshold I looked up to Heaven
And did not want glimmerings of quiet hope.
So, from the court I passed, and down the brook,
Led by its murmur, to the ancient oak
I came; and when I felt its cooling shade,
I sate me down, and cannot but believeWhile in my lap I held my little Babe
And clasped her to my heart, my heart that ached
More with delight than grief-I heard a voice
Such as by Cherith on Elijah called;
It said, "I will be with thee." A little boy,
A shepherd-lad, ere yet my trance was gone,
Hailed us as if he had been sent from heaven,
And said, with tears, that he would be our guide:
I had a better guide-that innocent BabeHer, who hath saved me, to this hour, from harm,
From cold, from hunger, penury, and death;
To whom I owe the best of all the good
I have, or wish for, upon earth-and more
And higher far than lies within earth's bounds:
Therefore I bless her: when I think of Man,
I bless her with sad spirit,-when of God,
I bless her in the fulness of my joy!




662


The Borderers


Mar. The name of daughter in his mouth, he prays'!
With nerves so steady, that the very flies
Sit unmolested on his staff.-Innocent!If he were innocent-then he would tremble
And be disturbed, as I am. (Turning aside.) I have read
In Story, what men now alive have witnessed,
How, when the People's mind was racked with doubt,
Appeal was made to the great Judge: the Accused
With naked feet walked over burning ploughshares.
Here is a Man by Nature's hand prepared
For a like trial, but more merciful.
Why else have I been led to this bleak Waste?
Bare is it, without house or track, and destitute
Of obvious shelter, as a shipless sea.
Here will I leave him-here-All-seeing God!
Such as he is, and sore perplexed as I am,
I will commit him to this final OrdeallHe heard a voice-a shepherd-lad came to him
And was his guide; if once, why not again,
And in this desert? If never-then the whole
Of what he says, and looks, and does, and is,
Makes up one damning falsehood. Leave him here
To cold and hunger!-Pain is of the heart,
And what are a few throes of bodily suffering
If they can waken one pang of remorse? [Goes up to HERBERT.
Old Man! my wrath is as a flame burnt out,
It cannot be rekindled. Thou art here
Led by my hand to save thee from perdition;
Thou wilt have time to breathe and think —
Her.                                  Oh, Mercy!
Mar. I know the need that all men have of mercy,
And therefore leave thee to a righteous judgment.
Her. My Child, my blessed Child!
Mar.                           No more of that;
Thou wilt have many guides if thou art innocent;
Yea, from the utmost corners of the earth,
That Woman will come o'er this Waste to save thee.
[He pauses and looks at HERBERT'S taff.
Ha! what is here? and carved by her own hand!
[Reads upon the staff.
" I am eyes to the blind, saith the Lord.
He that puts his trust in me shall not fail!"
Yes, be it so;-repent and be forgivenGod and that staff are now thy only guides.
[He leaves HERBERT on the Moor.




The   Borderers                663
SCENE-An eminence, a Beacon on the summit.
LACY, WALLACE, LENNOX, etc. etc.
Several of the Band (confusedly). But patience!
':One of the Band. Curses on that Traitor, Oswald!Our Captain made a prey to foul device!Len. (to WAL.) His tool, the wandering Beggar, made
last night
A plain confession, such as leaves no doubt,
Knowing what otherwise we know too well,
That she revealed the truth. Stand by me now;
For rather would I have a nest of vipers
Between my breast-plate and my skin, than make
Oswald my special enemy, if you
Deny me your support.
Lacy.               We have been fooled —
But for the motive?
Wal.            Natures such as his
Spin motives out of their own bowels, Lacy!
I learned this when I was a Confessor.
I know him well; there needs no other motive
Than that most strange incontinence in crime
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him
And breath and being; where he cannot govern,
He will destroy.
Lacy.        To have been trapped like moles!Yes, you are right, we need not hunt for motives:
There is no crime from which this man would shrink;
He recks not human law; and I have noticed
That often when the name of God is uttered,
A sudden blankness overspreads his face.
Len. Yet, reasoner as he is, his pride has built
Some uncouth superstition of its own.
Wal. I have seen traces of it.
Len.                       Once he headed
A band of Pirates in the Norway seas;
And when the King of Denmark summoned him
To the oath of fealty, I well remember,
'Twas a strange answer that he made; he said,
"I hold of Spirits, and the Sun in heaven."
Lacy. He is no madman.
Wal.                   A most subtle doctor
Were that man, who could draw the line that parts
Pride and her daughter, Cruelty, from Madness,
That should be scourged, not pitied. Restless Minds,




664              The   Borderers
Such Minds as find amid their fellow-men
No heart that loves them, none that they can love,
Will turn perforce and seek for sympathy
In dim relation to imagined Beings.
One of the Band. What if he mean to offer up our Captain
An expiation and a sacrifice
To those infernal fiends!
Wal.                 Now, if the event
Should be as Lennox has foretold, then swear,
My Friends, his heart shall have as many wounds
As there are daggers here.
Lacy.                  What need of swearing!
One of the Band. Let us away!
Another.                    Away!
A third.                       Hark! how the horns
Of those Scotch Rovers echo through the vale.
Lacy. Stay you behind; and when the sun is down,
Light up this beacon.
One of the Band.  You shall be obeyed.
[They go out together.
SCENE-The Wood on the edge of the Moor.
MARMADUKE (alone).
Mar. Deep, deep and vast, vast beyond human thought,
Yet calm.-I could believe, that there was here
The only quiet heart on earth. In terror,
Remembered terror, there is peace and rest.
Enter OSWALD.
Osw. Ha! my dear Captain.
Mar.                      A later meeting, Oswald,
Would have been better timed.
Osw.                      Alone, I see;
You have done your duty. I had hopes, which now
I feel that you will justify.
Mar.                  I had fears,
From which I have freed myself-but 'tis my wish
To be alone, and therefore we must part.
Osw. Nay, then-I am mistaken. There's a weakness
About you still; you talk of solitudeI am your friend.
Mar.           What need of this assurance
At any time? and why given now?
Osw.                         Because




The Borderers


665


You are now in truth my Master; you have taught me
What there is not another living man
IHad strength to teach;-and therefore gratitude
Is bold, and would relieve itself by praise.
Mar. Wherefore press this on me?
OsM.                           Because I feel
That you have shown, and by a signal instance,
How they who would be just must seek the rule
By diving for it into their own bosoms.
To-day you have thrown off a tyranny
That lives but in the torpid acquiescence
Of our emasculated -souls, the tyranny
Of the world's masters, with the musty rules
By which they uphold their craft from age to age:
You have obeyed the only law that sense
Submits to recognise; the immediate law,
From the clear light of circumstances, flashed
Upon an independent Intellect.
Henceforth new prospects open on your path;
Your faculties should grow with the demand;
I still will be your friend, will cleave to you
Through good and evil, obloquy and scorn,
Oft as they dare to follow on your steps.
Mar. I would be left alone.
Osw. (exultingly). I know your motives!
I am not of the world's presumptuous judges,
Who damn where they can neither see nor feel,
With a hard-hearted ignorance; your struggles
I witnessed, and now hail your victory.
Mar. Spare me awhile that greeting.
Osw.                            It may be,
That some there are, squeamish half-thinking cowards,
Who will turn pale upon you, call you murderer,
And you will walk in solitude among them.
A mighty evil for a strong-built mind!
Join twenty tapers of unequal height
And light them joined, and you will see the less
How 'twill burn down the taller; and they all
Shall prey upon the tallest. Solitude!The Eagle lives in Solitude.
Mar.                   Even so,
The Sparrow so on the housetop, and I,
The weakest of God's creatures, stand resolved
To abide the issue of my act, alone.
Osw. Now would you? and for ever?-My young Friend,




666


The -Borderers


As time advances either we become
The prey or masters of our own past deeds.
Fellowship we must have, willing or no;
And if good Angels fail, slack in their duty,
Substitutes, turn our faces where we may,
Are still forthcoming; some which, though they bear
Ill names, can render no ill services,
In recompense for what themselves required.
So meet extremes in this mysterious world,
And opposites thus melt into each other.
Mar. Time, since Man first drew breath, has never moved
With such a weight upon his wings as now;
But they will soon be lightened.
Osw.                '     Ay, look upCast round you your mind's eye, and you will learn
Fortitude is the child of Enterprise:
Great actions move our admiration, chiefly,.'
Because they carry in themselves an earnest
That we can suffer greatly.
Mar.                  Very true.
Osw. Action is transitory-a step, a blow,
The motion of a muscle-this way or that'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed:
Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And shares the nature of infinity.
Mar. Truth-and I feel it.
Osw.                     What! if you had bid
Eternal farewell to unmingled joy
And the light dancing of the thoughtless heart;,
It is the toy of fools, and little fit
For such a world as this. The wise abjure
All thoughts whose idle composition lives
In the entire forgetfulness of pain.
-I see I have disturbed you.
Mar.                      By no means.
Osw. Compassion!-pity! —pride can do without them;
And what if you should never know them more lHe is a puny soul who, feeling pain,
Finds ease because another feels it too.
If e'er I open out this heart of mine
It shall be for a nobler end-to teach
And not to purchase puling sympathy.
-Nay, you are pale.
- ar,            It may be so.




The Borderers                 667
Osw.                           RemorseIt cannot live with thought; think on, think on,
And it will die. What! in this universe,
Where the least things control the greatest, where
The faintest breath that breathes can move a world;
What! feel remorse, where, if a cat had sneezed,
A leaf had fallen, the thing had never been
Whose very shadow gnaws us to the vitals.
Mlar. Now, whither are you wandering? That a man
So used to suit his language to the time,
Should thus so widely differ from himselfIt is most strange.
Osw.           Murder!-what's in the word! —
I have no cases by me ready made
To fit all deeds. Carry him to the Camp tA shallow project;-yaou of late have seen
More deeply, taught us that the institutes
Of Nature, by a cunning usurpation
Banished from human intercourse, exist
Only in our relations to the brutes'
That make the fields their dwelling. If a. snake
Crawl from beneath our feet we do not ask
A license to destroy him: our good- governors
Hedge in the life of every pest and plague
That bears the shape of man; and for what purpose,
But to protect themselves from extirpation?This flimsy barrier you have overleaped.Mar. My Office is fulfilled  the Man is now
Delivered to the Judge of all things.
Osw.                           Dead!
Mar. I have borne my burthen to its destined end.
Osw. This instant we'll return to our companionsOh how I long to see their faces again!
Enter IDONEA, with Pilgrims who continue their journey.
Idon. (after some time). What, Marmaduke! now thou
art mine for ever.
And Oswald, too! (To MARMADUKE) —On will we to my
Father
With the glad tidings which this day hath brought;
We'll go together, and, such proof received
Of his own rights restored, his gratitude
To God above will make him feel for ours.
Osw. I interrupt you?
Idon.                Think not so.




668             The Borderers
Mar.                                Idonea,
That I should ever live to see this moment!
Idon. Forgive me.-Oswald knows it all-he knows,
Each word of that unhappy letter fell
As a blood drop from my heart.
Osw.                      'Twas even so.
Mar. I have much to say, but for whose ear?-not
thine.
Idon. Ill can I bear that look.-Plead for me, Oswald!
You are my Father's Friend.
(To MARMADUKE). Alas, you know not,
And never can you know, how much he loved me.
Twice had he been to me a father, twice
Had given me breath, and was I not to be
His daughter, once his daughter? could I withstand
His pleading face, and feel his clasping arms,
And hear his prayer that I would not forsake him
In his old age —                     [Hides her face.
Mar.          Patience-Heaven grant me patience!She weeps, she weeps-my brain shall burn for hours
Ere I can shed a tear.
Idon.             I was a woman;
And, balancing the hopes that are the dearest
To womankind with duty to my Father,
I yielded up those precious hopes, which nought
On earth could else have wrested from me;-if erring,
Oh let me be forgiven!
Mar.               I do forgive thee.
Idon. But take me to your arms-this breast, alas!
It throbs, and you have a heart that does not feel it.
Mar. (exultingly). She is innocent.  [He embraces her.
Osw. (aside).                  Were I a Moralist,
I should make wondrous revolution here;
It were a quaint experiment to show
The beauty of truth-                [Addressing them.
I see I interrupt you;
I shall have business with you, Marmaduke;
Follow me to the Hostel.             [Exit OSWALD.
Idon.                Marmaduke,
This is a happy day. My Father soon
Shall sun himself before his native doors;
The lame, the hungry, will be welcome there.
No more shall he complain of wasted strength,
Of thoughts that fail, and a decaying heart;
His good works will be balm and life to him.




The    Borderers               669
Mar. This is most strange!-I know not what it was,
But there was something which most plainly said,
That thou wert innocent.
Idon.                 How innocent!Oh heavens! you've been deceived.
Mar.                           Thou art a Woman,
To bring perdition on the universe.
Idon. Already I've been punished to the height
Of my offence.                  [Smiling affectionately.
I see you love me still,
The labours of my hand are still your joy;
Bethink you of the hour when on your shoulder
I hung this belt.
[Pointing to the belt on which was suspended HERBERT'S
scrip.
Mar.         Mercy of Heaven!              [Sinks.
Idon.                  What ails you! [Distractedly.
Mar. The scrip that held his food, and I forgot
To give it back again!
Idon.              What mean your words?
Mar. I know not what I said-all may be well.
Idon. That smile hath life in it!
Mar.                          This road is perilous;
I will attend you to a Hut that stands
Near the wood's edge-rest there to-night, I pray you:
For me, I have business, as you heard, with Oswald,
But will return to you by break of day.     [Exeunt.
ACT IV.
SCENE-A desolate prospect-a ridge of rocks-a Chapel on
the summit of one-Moon behind the rocks-night stormy
-irregular sound of a Bell-HERBERT enters exhausted.
Her. That Chapel-bell in mercy seemed to guide me,
But now it mocks my steps; its fitful stroke
Can scarcely be the work of human hands.
Hear me, ye Men, upon the cliffs, if such
There be who pray nightly before the Altar.
Oh that I had but strength to reach the place!
My Child-my child-dark-dark-I faint-this windT'hese stifling blasts-God help me!
Enter ELDRED.
Eld.                            Better this bare rock,
Though it were tottering over a man's head,




670


The Borderers


Than a tight case of dungeon walls for shelter
From such rough dealing.     [A moaning voice is heard.
Ha! what sound is:that?
Trees creaking in the wind (but none are here)
Send forth such noises-and that weary bell!
Surely some evil Spirit abroad to-night
Is ringing it-'twould stop a Saint in prayer,
And that —what is it? never was sound so like
A human groan. Ha! what is here? Poor ManMurdered! alas! speak-speak, I am your friend:
No answer-hush-lost wretch, he lifts his hand'
And lays it to his heart-(Kneels to him). I pray you speak;!
What has befallen you?
Her. (feebly).      A stranger has done this,
And in the arms of-a stranger I must die.
Ed. Nay, think not so: come, let me raise you up:
[Raises him.
This is a dismal place-well-that is wellI was too fearful-take me for your guide
And your support-my hut is not far off.
[Draws him gently off the stage.
SCENE —A room in the Hostel-MARMADUKE and OSWALD.
Mar. But for Idonea!-I have cause to think
That she is innocent.
Osw.              Leave that thought awhile,
As one of those beliefs, which in their hearts '
Lovers lock up as pearls, though oft no better
Than feathers clinging to their points of passion.
This day's event has laid on me the duty
Of opening out my story; you must hear it,
And without further preface.-In my youth,
Except for that abatement which is paid;
By envy as a tribute to desert,
I was the pleasure of all hearts, the darling
Of every tongue-as you are now. You've heard
That I embarked for Syria. On our voyage  -
Was hatched among the crew a foul Conspiracy
Against my honour, in the which our Captain
Was, I believed, prime Agent. The wind-fell;
We lay becalmed week after week, until':  -.
The water of the vessel was exhausted;
I felt a double fever in my veins,
Yet rage suppressed itself;-to a deep stillness
Did my pride tame my pride-;-for many days,'




The Borderers


671


On a dead sea under a burning sky,
I brooded o'er my injuries, deserted
By man and nature;-if a breeze had blown,
It might have found its way into my heart,
And I had been-no matter-do you mark me?
Mar. Quick-to the point-if any untold crime
Doth haunt your memory.
Oswz.                -Patience, hear me further!One day in silence did we drift at noon
By a bare rock, narrow, and white, and bare;
No food was there, no drink, no grass, no shade,
No tree, nor jutting eminence, nor form
Inanimate large as the body of man,
Nor any living thing whose lot of life
Might stretch beyond the measure of one moon.
To dig for water on the spot, the Captain
Landed with a small troop, myself being one:
There I reproached him with his treachery.
Imperious at all times, his temper rose;
He struck me; and that instant had I killed him,
And put an end to his insolence, but my Comrades
Rushed in between us: then did I insist
(All hated him, and I was stung to madness)
That we should leave him there, alive!-we did so.
Mar. And he was famished?
Osw.                       Naked was the spot;
Methinks I see it now —how in the sun
Its stony surface glittered like a shield;
And in that miserable place we left him,
Alone but for a swarm of minute creatures
Not one of which could help him while alive,
Or mourn him dead.
Mar.             A man by men cast off,
Left without burial! nay, not dead nor dying,
But standing, walking, stretching forth his arms,
In all things like ourselves, but in the agony
With which he called for mercy; and-even soHe was forsaken?
Oszw.         There is a power in sounds:
The cries he uttered might have stopped the boat:
That bore us through the water —
Mar.                           You returned.'
Upon that dismal hearing-did you not?
Osw. Some scoffed at him with hellish mockery,
And laughed so loud it seemed that the smooth sea




672


The Borderers


Did from some distant region echo us.
Mar. We all are of one blood, our veins are filled
At the same poisonous fountain!
Oswz.                       'Twas an island
Only by sufferance of the winds and waves,
Which with their foam could cover it at will.
I know not how he perished; but the calm,
The same dead calm, continued many days.
Mar. But his own crime had brought on him this doom,
His wickedness prepared it; these expedients
Are terrible, yet ours is not the fault.
Osw. The man was famished, and was innocent! '
Mar. Impossible!
Osw. The man had never wronged me.
Afar. Banish the thought, crush it, and be at peace.
His guilt was marked-these things could never be
Were there not eyes that see, and for good ends,
Where ours are baffled.
Osw.               I had been deceived.
Mar. And from that hour the miserable man
No more was heard of?
Osw.               I had been betrayed.
Mar. And he found no deliverance!
Osw.                             The Crew
Gave me a hearty welcome; they had laid
The plot to rid themselves, at any cost,
Of a tyrannic Master whom they loathed.
So we pursued our voyage: when we landed,
The tale was spread abroad; my power at once
Shrunk from me; plans and schemes, and lofty hopesAll vanished. I gave way-do you attend?
Mar. The Crew deceived you?
Osw.                        Nay, command yourself.
2Mar. It is a dismal night-how the wind howls!
Osw. I hid my head within a Convent, there
Lay passive as a dormouse in mid-winter.
That was no life for me-I was o'erthrown,
But not destroyed.
Mar.            The proofs-you ought to have seen
The guilt-have touched it-felt it at your heartAs I have done.
Osw.         A fresh tide of Crusaders
Drove by the place of my retreat: three nights
Did constant meditation dry my blood;
Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,




The Borderers                 673
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way;- r..,,,
And, wheresoe'er I turned me, I beheld...;,:
A slavery compared to which the dungeon.
And clanking chains are perfect liberty..:
You understand me-I was comforted;
I saw that every possible shape of action;..
Might lead to good-I saw it and burst forth;
Thirsting for some of those exploits that fill;.:.
The earth for sure redemption of lost peace..
[Markingg MARMADUKE'S, cou/enance.
Nay, you have had the worst.. Ferocity,
Subsided in a moment, like a wind.:, -.
That drops down dead out of a sky it vexed.,.
And yet I had within me evermore
A salient spring of energy; I mounted-,
From action up to action with a mind.
That never rested-without meat or drink
Have I lived many days-my sleep was bound.;.
To purposes of reason —not a dream
But had a continuity and substance.;
That waking life had never power to give.::;,'i
Mar. 0 wretched Human-kind! — Until the mystery -,
Of all this world is solved, well may we envy.;;.
The worm, that, underneath a stone whose weight:;;  i
Would crush the lion's paw with mortal anguish,;:;
Doth lodge, and feed, and coil, and sleep, in safety.,;..
Fell not the wrath of Heaven upon those traitors,?. -;
Osw. Give not to them a thought. From Palestine:.:
We marched to Syria: oft I left the Camp,. ~
When all that multitude of hearts was still,..,
And followed on, through woods of gloomy cedari
Into deep chasms troubled by roaring streams;:.  -.
Or from the top of Lebanon surveyed...        -,
The moonlight desert, and the moonlight sea:-.: '.
In these my lonely wanderings I perceived;
What mighty objects do impress their forms...
To elevate our intellectual being;...And felt, if aught on earth deserves a curse,:';.
'Tis that worst principle of ill which dooms
A thing so great to perish self-consumed,.;:. -?
-So much for my remorse!...,.'
Mar..      Unhappy Man.!;. \..;, i
Osw. When from these forms I turned to, contemplatet-.
The World's opinions and her usages,-:l,   '
I seemed a Being who had passed alone..  ', -;?
z




674             The Borderers
Into a region of futurity,
Whose natural element was freedom  -      - -
Mar.                               StopI may not, cannot, follow thee..
Osw.            '         You must.        '.
I had been nourished by the sickly food;
Of popular applause. I now perceived:     -
That we are praised, only as men in us
Do recognise some image of themselves,.
An abject counterpart of what they are,
Or the empty thing that they would wish to be.
I felt that merit has no surer test   -;      -
Than obloquy; that, if we wish to serve
The world in substance, not deceive by show,;
We must become obnoxious to its hate,
Or fear disguised in simulated scorn.
AMar. I pity, can forgive, you; but those wretches-:
That monstrous perfidy!                  -.  -
Osw.                 Keep down your wrath,
False Shame discarded, spurious Fame despised,.-;
Twin sisters both of Ignorance, I found.
Life stretched before me smooth as some broad way,
Cleared for a monarch's progress. Priests might spin
Their veil, but not for me-'twas in fit place
Among its kindred cobwebs. I had been,
And in that dream had left my native land,
One of Love's simple bondsmen -the soft chain
Was off for ever; and the men, from whom
This liberation came, you would destroy:
Join me in thanks for their blind services.
Mar. 'Tis a strange aching that, when we would curse
And cannot.-You have betrayed me-I have doneI am content-I know that he is guiltless -;,?
That both are guiltless, without spot or stain,    '
Mutually consecrated. Poor old Man!
And I had heart for this, because thou lovedst
Her who from very infancy had been.
Light to thy path, warmth to thy blood!-Together;
-       - [ Turning to OSWALD.
We propped his steps, he leaned upon us both.
Osw. Ay, we are coupled by a chain of adamant;
Let us be fellow-labourers, then, to enlarge
Man's intellectual empire. We subsist:,:  -
In slavery; all is slavery; we receive
Laws, but we ask not whence those laws have come;,.




The   Borderers               675
We need an inward sting to goad us on.
Mar. Have you betrayed me? Speak to that.;
Osw.                                    The mask,
Which for a season I have stooped to wear,
Must be cast off.-Know then that I was urged,
(For other impulse let it pass) was driven,
To seek for sympathy, because I saw
In you a mirror of my youthful self;
I would have made us equal once again,
But that was a vain hope. You have struck home,
With a few drops of blood cut short the business;
Therein for ever you must yield to me...
But what is done will save you from the blank,:.,
Of living without knowledge that you live:
Now you are suffering-for the future day,
'Tis his who will command it.-Think of my storyHerbert is innocent..Mar. (in a faint voice, and doubtingly). You do but echo
My own wild words?^,
Osw.?    Young Man, the seed must lie..
Hid in the earth, or there can be no harvest;
'Tis Nature's law. -What I have done in darkness
I will avow before the face of day.
Herbert is innocent.
Mar.             What fiend could prompt
This action? Innocent!-oh, breaking heart!Alive or dead, I'll find him...     Exit,
Osw.                   Alive-perdition!..[Exit.
SCENE-The inside of a poor Cottage.
ELEANOR and IDONEA seated.
Idon. The storm beats hard —Mercy for poor or rich,
Whose heads are shelterless in such a night!
A Voice without. Holla! to bed, good Folks, within!
Elea.                                  0 Osave us!
Idon. What can this mean?..
Elea.                  Alas, for my poor husband!We'll have a counting of our flocks to-morrow;
The wolf keeps festival these stormy nights;
Be calm, sweet Lady, they are wassailers
[The voices die away in the distance.
Returning from their Feast-my heart beats soA noise at midnight does so frighten me.
Idon. Hush!                             [Listening.




67-             The Borderers
Elea. They are gone. On such a night my husband,,;
Dragged from his bed, was cast into a dungeon,
Where, hid from me, he counted many years,
A criminal in no ones- eyes but theirsNot even in theirs-whose brutal violence:
So dealt with him...                  -.
Idon.           I have a noble Friend r
First among youths of knightly breeding, One,
Who lives but to protect the weak- or injured. -
There againt:, -  -  '-      [Listening.
tlea..  'Tis my -husband's foot.,-:Good Eldred
Has a kind heart; but his imprisonment
Has made him fearful, and he'll never be
The man he was.;,,
Idon.          I will; retire;-good night!;
[She goes within.
-.,, HEn. ter ELDRED (hides a bundle).
Eld. Not yet in bed, Eleanor!-thejre are stains in that
frock which -must be washed out..
Elea. What has befallen you?.
Eld. I am belated, and you must,know the cause(speaking low) that is the blood of an unhappy Man.
Elea. Oh! we are undone for ever.
Eld. Heaveanforbid;,that I should-lift my hand against
any man. Eleanor,,I.have shed tears to-night, and it
comf:orts me to think of it.:Zlea. Where, where is he?
Eld. I have done him no harm, but —it will be forgiven
me; it would not have been so once.
Elea. You have not buried anything?  You are no
richer than when you left me?.
Eld;- Beat 'peace; I am'innocent..
Elea. Then God be thanked-:';!::i..... - '  [A short pause; she falls upon his neck.
Ed. To-night I met with an old Man lying stretched
upon the ground-a sad spectacle: I raised him-up with
a hope,that we might shelter and restore him.
Elea. (as if ready -to' run). 'Where.is he? You were
not able to bring him all the- way with you; let us return,
I can help you.:::     [ELDRED shakes his heall.
Eld. iHe -did not seem to wish for life: as I was struggling
on, by the light of the moon I saw the stains of blood upon
my clothes-he waved his hand, as if it -were all useless;
antd -I let him sink again to the ground.




The Borderers                 677
Elea. Oh that I had been by your side:! ", i'
Eld. I tell you his hands and his, body were. old-how
could I disturb his last moments? he strove to turn fromn
me as if he wished to settle into sleep. -.. -;
Elea. But, for the stains of blood-..
Eld. He must have fallen, I fancy, for his' head; was
cut; but I think his malady was cold and hunger...
Elea. Oh, Eldred, I shall never be able to look up at
this roof in storm or fair but I shall tremble.
Eld. Is it not enough that my ill stars have kept me
abroad to-night till this hour?  I come.home, and this is
my comfort!   -                              -';
Elea. But did he say nothing which might have set'you
at ease?
Eld. I thought he grasped my hand while he *s was
muttering something about his Child-his, Dau;ghter(starting as if he heard a noise). What is that?:- -:
Elea, Eldred, you are a father...
Eld. God knows what was in my heart, and,will not
curse my son for my sake.
Elea. But you prayed by him? you waited the hour of
his release?
Eld. The night was wasting fast; I have no friend; I
am spited by the world-his wound terrified me —if I had
brought him along with me,; and he had died in my arms!
- I am sure I heard something breathing-and this chair!
Elea. Oh, Eldred, you will die alone, You will have
nobody to close your eyes-no hand to grasp your. dying
hand-I shall be in my grave. A curse will attend us altl.
Eid. Have you forgot your own troubles, when I was in
the dungeon?
Elea. And you left hfm alive?';,
Eld. Alive!-the damps of death were upon him'-he
could not have survived an hour.
Elea. In the cold, cold night..
Eld. (in a savage tone). Ay, and his head was bare; I
suppose you would have had me lend my bonrnet to cover
it.-You will never rest till I am brought to a feloi's e:id7'
Elea. Is there nothing: to be done? 'anniot we go to the
Convent?.        -
Eld. Ay, and say at once that I murdered him! '' t;i
Elea. Eldred, I know that ours: is the ohly house aup6
the Waste; let us take heart; this Man may be. rich '-and
could he be saved by- our means, his, gratitude may reward




678              The   Borderers
Eld. 'Tis all in vain.
-leea. But let us make the attempt. This old Man may
-have a wife, and he may have children-let us return to
the spot; we may restore him, and his eyes may yet open
upon those that love him.Eld. He will never open them  more; even when he
spoke to me, he kept them firmly sealed as if he had been:blind.
Idon. (rushing out). It is, it is, my FatherEld. We are betrayed (looking at IDONEA).:lea. His. Daughter!- God have mercy! (turning to
IDONEA).
Idon. (sinking down). Oh! lift me up and carry me to
the place.
You are safe; the whole world shall not harm you.
-. lea. This Lady is his Daughter.
Eld. (moved). I'll lead you to the spot.
Idon. (springing up). Alive!-you heard him  breathe?! r    quick, quick —                        [Exeunt.
ACT V...    A CT.........,:
SCENE-A wood on the edge of the Waste.';
Enter OSWALD and a Forester.:For. 'He leaned upon the bridge that spans the glen,
And down into the bottom cast his eye,
That fastened there, as it would check the current.
'Osw. He listened too; did you not say he listened?
For. As if there came such moaning from the flood
As is heard often after stormy nights..
Osw. But did he utter nothing?
For.                         See him there!
MARMADUKE appearing.
MAf ar. Buzz, buzz, ye black'and winged freebooters;
That is no substance which ye settle on!: or, His senses play him false; and see, his arms
Outspread, as if to save himself from falling!Some terrible phantom I believe is now
Iassing before him, such as God will not
Permit to visit any but a man
Who has been guilty of some horrid crime.    i
[MARMADUKE disappears.




The Borderers


679


OszP. The game is up!For.                    If it be needful, Sir,
I will assist you to lay hands upon him.
Osw. No, no, my Friend, you may pursue your business'Tis a poor wretch of an unsettled mind,
Who has a trick of straying from his keepers;
We must be gentle. Leave him to my care. [Exit Forester.
If his own eyes play false with him, these freaks
Of fancy shall be quickly tamed by mine;
The goal is reached. My Master shall become
A shadow of myself-made by myself.
SCENE-The edge of the Moor.
MARMADUKE and ELDRED enterfrom opposite sides.
Mar. (raising his eyes and perceiving ELDRED). In any
corner of this savage Waste,
Have you, good Peasant, seen a blind old Man?
Eld. I heardMar.         You heard him, where? when heard him?
Eld.                            As you know,
The first hours of last night were rough with storm:
I had been out in search of a stray heifer;
Returning late, I heard a moaning sound;
Then, thinking that my fancy had deceived me,
I hurried on, when straight a second moan,
A human voice distinct, struck on my ear,
So guided, distant a few steps, I found
An aged Man, and such as you describe.
Mar. You heard!-he called you to him? Of all men
The best and kindest!-but where is he? guide me,
That I may see him.
Eld.             On a ridge of rocks
A lonesome Chapel stands, deserted now:
The bell is left, which no one dares remove;
And, when the stormy wind, blows o'er the peak,
It rings, as if a human hand were there
To pull the cord, I guess he must have heard it;
And it had led him towards the precipice,
To climb up to the spot whence the sound came;
But he had failed through weakness. From his hand
His staff had dropped, and close upon the brink
Of a small pool of water he was laid,




680             The    Borderers,As if he had stooped to drink, and so remained
Without the 'strength to rise.
ar.               -Well, well, he lives,'
And all is safe: what said he?.;              '
Eld.                      But few words:
He only spake to me of a'dear Daughter,,
Who, so he feared, would never see him more;
And of a Stfanger 'to him, One by whom
He had been'sore misused; but he forgave
The wrong and the wrong-doer. You are troubledPerhaps you are his son?
Mar.                 The All-seeing knows,
I did not think he had a living Child.But whither did you carry him?
Eld.                       He was torn,
His head was bruised, and there was blood about him ---
AMar. That was no work of mine.
'ld.      '                   Nor was it mine.
Mar. But had he strength to walk? I could' have borne
him      '
A thousand miles.
Ed:            I aim in poverty,
And-know how busy are the tongues of men;
My heart was willing, Sir, but I am one
Whose good deeds will 'not stand by their own light;
And, though it smote me more than words can tell,
I left him.
Mar.    I believe that'there are phantoms,
That in the'shape of man do cross our path  "'
On evil instigation, to make sport '
Of our distress-and thou art one of them!
But things 'substantial 'have so pressed on me —
Eld. My:ife and children came into my mind.'
Afar. Oh Monster! Monster! there are three of'us,
And we shall howl together.:  [After a pause and in a feeble voice.
I am deserted  '
At my worst need, my crimes have in a net    '
(Pointing to ELDRED) Entangled this poor man.-Where
was it?' where? '[Dragging him along.
Bid. 'Tis needless; spare your violence.
His Daughter —'                     '         'Afar. Ay, 'in the Word a thousand scorpions lodge:
This old man had a Daughter.
Eld.                     To the spot




The   Borderers                68i
I hurried back with her. —O save me, Sir,.:;
From such a journey! —there was a black tree,; ~  >
A single tree; she thought it was her Father.-.;
Oh Sir, I would not see that hour-again
For twenty lives. The daylight dawned, and now —
Nay; hear my tale, 'tis fit that you should hear it.-~
As we approached, a solitary crow
Rose from the spot;-the Daughter clapped her hands,
And then I heard a shriek so terrible
[MARMADUKE shrinks back.
The startled bird quivered upon the wing.
Mar. Dead, dead!-     -.     'Eld. (after a pause). A dismal matter, Sir, for me;.
And seems the like-for you; if 'tis your wish,
I'll lead you to his Daughter; but 'twere best
That she should be prepared; I'll go before.
Mar. There will be need of preparation;
[ELDRED goes o.
Elea. (enters).                      Master!
Your limbs sink under you, shall I support you?
Mar. (taking her arm). Woman, I've lent my body td the
service
Which now thou tak'st upon thee. God forbid
That thou shouldst ever meet a like occasion
With such a purpose in thine heart as mine was.
Elea. Oh, why have I to do with things like these?
[Exeuit.
SCENE changes to the door of ELDRED'S cottage-IDONEA
seated-enter ELDRED.
Eld. Your Father, Lady, from a wilful hand
Has met unkindness; so indeed he told me,
And you remember such was my report:
From what has just befallen me I have cause
To fear the very worst.
Idon.              My Father is dead;...: '
Why dost thou come to me with words like these?
Eld. A wicked Man should answer for his.crimes,Idon. Thou seest me what I am.
Eld.                           It was mostrheinous,
And doth call out for vengeance...
Idon.                       Do not add,
I prithee, to the harm thou'st.done already.,
Eld. Hereafter you will thank me for this service.




6682


The Borderers


Hard by, a Man I met, who, from plain proofs -;..
Of interfering Heaven, I have no doubt,
Laid hands upon your Father. Fit it were.
You should prepare to.meet him.   ' -:
Idon.                        I have nothing
To do with others.; help me to my Father —   * '
[She turns and sees MARMADUKE leaning on ELEANOR —
i throws hersegf upon his neck, and after some time, -
In joy I met thee, but a few hours past; '
And thus,:we meet again; one human stay
Is left me still in.thee. Nay, shake not so.
far. In such a wilderness —to see'no thing,
No, not the pitying moon!
Idon.       -       -' And perish so.
Mar. Without a dog to moan for him.;:
Idon.     -      '.               Think not of it,
But enter there and see him how he sleeps,  -.Tranquil as he' had died in his own bed.
Mar. Tranquil-why not?
Idon.     -. '           Oh, peace!  '
Mar.' '                             He is.-atpeace;
His body is at rest: there was a plot,
A hideous plot, against the soul of man::-!.
It took effect-and yet I baffled it,
In some degree.' -;
Idon. -:   Between us stood, I thought,.A cup of consolation, filled from Heaven
For both our needs; must I, and in thy presence,
Alone partake of it?-Beloved Marmaduke.
Mar. 'Give me a reason;why the wisest thing
That the earth owns shall never choose to die,
But some one must be near to count his- groans.
The wounded deer retires to solitude,' '.:
And dies in solitude:' all things-but man, ''
All die in solitude.  -  [Moving towards the cottdige door.
Mysterious God,  '       '
If she had never lived' I had not. done it!
Idon. Alas, the thought' of such a'cruel death
Has overwhelmed him'-. I-  must follow.  '      '.Eld.                    '.. Lady!'.
You will do well;(she goes) unjust suspicion may
Cleave to this Stranger: if,.upon his entering,  '
The dead Man heave a groan, or from his side
Uplift his hand-that would be evidence.: - '.;
Elea. 'Shame! Eldred, shame!  '




The Borderers          -      683
Mar. (both returning). The dead have but one face (to: imself).
And such a Man-so meek and unoffendingHelpless and harmless as a babe: a Man,
By obvious signal to the world's protection,
Solemnly dedicated-to decoy him!Idon. Oh, had you seen him living!
Mar.                              I (so filled
With horror is this world) am unto thee
The thing most precious, that it now contains:
Therefore through me alone must be revealed
By whom thy Parent was destroyed, Idonea!
I have the proofs!Idon.            0 miserable Father!       -
Thou didst command me to bless all mankind;
Nor to this moment, have I ever wished.
Evil to any living thing; but hear me,
Hear me, ye Heavens!-(kneeling)-may vengeance haunt
the fiend
For this most cruel murder: let him live
And move in terror of the elements;
The thunder send him on his knees to prayer.In the open streets, and let him think he sees,
If e'er he entereth the house of God,
The roof, self-moved, unsettling o'er his head;
And let him, when he would lie down at night,
Point to his wife the blood-drops on his pillows!
Mar. My voice was silent, but my heart hath joined
thee.
Idon. (leaning on MARMADUKE). Left to the mercy of that
savage Man!
How could he call upon his Child!-O Friend!  ':
[Turns to MARMADUKE.
My faithful true and only Comforter.
Mar. Ay, come to me and weep. (He zisses her.) (To
ELDRED.) Yes, Varlet, look,
The devils at such sights do clap their hands.
[ELDRED retires alarmed.
Idon. Thy vest is torn, thy cheek is deadly pale:
Hast thou pursued the monster?
Mar.                        I have found him.Oh! would that thou hadst perished in the flames! -
Idon. Here art thou, then can I be desolate?Mar. There was a time, when this protecting hand
Availed against the mighty; never more




:684              The, Borderers,.Shall blessings wait upon a deed of mine.
Idon. Wild words for me.to hear, for me, an orphan
Committed to thy guardianship by Heaven;
And, if thou hast. forgiven -me, let me hope;
In this deep sorrow, trust,' that I. am thihe
For closer care;-here, is no, malady. [Taking his arm.
Mar. There, is a malady- - -
(Striking' his heart andforehead). And here, and here,
A mortal malady.-I am accurst:
All nature curses -me, and in my heart
Thy curse is fixed; the truth must-be laid bare.
It must be told,: and borne. I am the man,
(Abused, betrayed, but how it matters not) -
Presumptuous above alll that ever breathed,
Who, casting as iI thought a guilty Person
Upon Heaven's righteous judgment, did become
An instrument of Fiends. Through me, through me.;;
Thy Father perished.                '
Idon.             Perished-by what mischance?
Mar. Beloved! —if I dared, so would' I call thee —
Conflict must cease, and, in: thy frozen heart,
The extremes of suffering meet in absolute peace.: -      [He gives her a letter.
Idon. (reads). "Be not surprised if you hear that some
signal judgment has, 'befallen the man who calls himself
your father; he is now with:-e, as his signature will shew:
abstain from co'njecture till youi see me.;       - -    -   -!     '-' -"HERBERT.
" MARMADUKE.":The..rtwriting Oswald's; the signature- my Father's:
(Looks steadily at the paper). And here is yours,-or do
my eyes deceive me,?   '
Yeou have th'en seen my Father?
Mar..               '.  ' He has leaned',Upon- this arm.;.;  '..
Idon.        You led him towards the Convent?
Mar. That Convent was Stone-Arthur Castle. -Thither
We were his, guides. I 'on that night resolved
That he- should:waait thy coming.till the day-'
Of resurrection.
Zdon~.;.. 'i Miserable Woman,
Too quicklymroved, too1 easily giving way,
I put denial: on thy'~suit; and hence,
With the disastrous issue' of last night,;
Thy perturbation, and these frantic words.   -




The   Borderers                685"
Be calm, I pray thee!,
Mar.              Oswald —.......
Idon..,  Name him snot.  ^
Enterfemale Beggar.
Beg. And he is dead!-that Moor-how shall I cross it?
By night, by day, never shall I be able
To travel half a mile alone.-Good Lady!
Forgive me! —Saints forgive me. Had I thought.
It would have come to this!Idon.                 What brings you hither? speak I
Beg. (pointing to MARMADUKE).: This innocent Gentlear
man. Sweet heavens! I told him,
Such tales of your dead Father!-God is my judge,
I thought there was no harm: but that bad Man,, ~  ';:
He bribed me with his gold, and looked so fierce.
Mercy! I said I know not what-oh pity me-,I said, sweet Lady, you were not his Daughter —.
Pity me, I am haunted;-thrice this day
My conscience made me wish to.be struck blind;
And then I would have prayed, and had no voice.
Idon. (to MARMADUKE). Was it my Father? -no, no,.no,
for he
Was meek and patient, feeble, old and blind,.
Helpless, and loved me dearer than his life.
-But hear me. For one question, I have a heart
That will sustain me. Did you murder him?
Mar. No, not by stroke of arm.      But learn the
process:,
Proof after proof was pressed upon me; guilt.
Made evident, as seemed, by blacker guilt,....
Whose impious folds enwrapped even thee;,and truth
And innocence, embodied in his looks5  I..
His words and tones and gestures, did but serve
With me to aggravate his crimes, and heaped    *   i
Ruin upon the cause for which they pleaded..
Then pity crossed the path of my.resolve:...,,
Confounded, I looked up to Heaven, and.cast,
Idonea! thy blind Father, on the Ordeal..
Of the bleak Waste-left him-and so he died!-.'  t
[IDONEA sinks senseless; Beggar, ELEANOR, etc., crowd,
round, and bear her off..,.,:  >...
Why may we speak these things, and do noamore;.
Why should a thrust of the arm have such a power,.
And words that tell these things be heard in vain?..?




686             The Borderers
She is not dead. Why!-if I loved this Woman,
I would take care she never woke again;
But she. wILL wake, and she will weep for me,
And say no blame was mine-and so, poolr fool,
Will waste her curses on another name.
[He walks about distractedly.
Enter OSWALD.
Osw. (to himself). Strong to overturn, strong also to
build up.                    [To MARMADUKE.
The starts and sallies of our last encounter
Were natural enough; but that, I trust,
Is all gone by. You havecast off the chains
That fettered your nobility of mindDelivered heart and head!.-:    Let us to Palestine;;
This is a paltry field for enterprise..
Mar. Ay, what shall we encounter next? This issue'Twas nothing more than darkness deepening darkness,
And weakness crowned With the impotence of death! —
Your pupil is, you see, an apt proficient (ironically).
Start not!-Here is another face hard by;
Come, let us take a peep at both together,
And, with a voice at which the dead will quake,
Resound the praise of your morality —
Of this too.much.
[Drawing OSWALD towards the Cottage-stops short
at the door.
Men are there, millions, Oswald,
Who with bare hands would have plucked out thy heart
And flung it to the dogs: but I am raised
Above, or sunk below, all further sense
Of provocation. Leave me, with the weight
Of that old Man's forgiveness on thy heart,
Pressing as heavily as it doth on mine.            '
Coward I have been; know, there lies not now,
Within the compass of a mortal thought,           ''
A deed that I would shrink from;-but to endure,
That is my destiny. May it be thine:
Thy office, thy ambition, be henceforth
To feed remorse, to welcome every sting
Of penitential anguish, yea with tears.
When seas and continents shall lie between usThe wider space the better-we may find
In such a course fit links of sympathy,




The    Borderers               687
An incommunicable rivalship:: i
Maintained, for peaceful ends beyond our view.:  -,
[Confused voices-several of the band enter-rush:
upon OSWALD and seize him..         -;
One of them. I would have dogged him to the jaws of
hell-;
O Osw. Ha! is it so!-That vagrant Hag!-this comes:
Of having left a thing like her alive!        [Asi'de.
Several voices. Despatch him!;:
Osw.                       If I pass: beneath a rock
And shout, and, with the echo of my voice,
Bring down a heap of rubbish, and it crush me,
I die without dishonour. Famished, starved,
A Fool and Coward blended to my wish!
[Smiles scornfully and exultingly at MARMADUKE.
Wal. 'Tis done! (stabs him).
Another of the band. The ruthless traitor!
Mar.                                A rash deed!With that reproof I do resign a station
Of which I have been proud.
Wil. (approaching MARMADUKE). O my poor Master!
Mar. Discerning Monitor, my faithful Wilfred,
Why art thou here?               [Turning to WALLACE.
Wallace, upon these Borders,
Many there be whose eyes will not want cause
To weep that I am gone. Brothers in arms!
Raise on that dreary Waste a monument
That may record my story: nor let wordsFew must they be, and delicate in their touch
As light itself-be there withheld from Her
Who, through most wicked arts, was made an orphan
By One who would have died a thousand times
'To shield her from a moment's harm. To you,
Wallace and Wilfred, I commend the Lady,
By lowly nature reared, as if to make her
In all things worthier of that noble birth,,Whose long-suspended rights are now on the eve
Of restoration: with your tenderest care
Watch over her, I pray-sustain herSeveral of the band (eagerly). Captain!
Mar. No more of that; in silence hear my doom:
A hermitage has furnished fit relief
To some offenders; other penitents,
Less patient in their wretchedness, have fallen,
Like the old Roman, on their own sword's point.




688,            The Borderers
They had their choice: a wanderer must I go,
The Spectre of that innocent Man, my guide.
No human ear shall ever hear me speak;
No human dwelling ever give me food,
Or sleep, or rest: but over waste and wild,
In search of nothing that this earth can give,
But expiation, will I wander on —
A 'Man, by pain and thought compelled to live,
Yet loathing life-till anger is appeased
In Heaven, and Mercy gives me leave to die.
UNIV. OF MICHIGAN,
JAN   5 1912


Richard Clay  S-0ons, Limited, London and Bungay.




I
I




I








THE UNIVERSITY -OF MICHIGAN.
GRAIDUATE LIBRARY'


DATE, DUE




4   4
I
/


~MAR 2351976


I


I
i I  _, _-;1  111*11(114-I-1;-), 3 ( PJ6
 Al K


e-1-113<1


jur:L






.     -......                                     - -.            -.                                                                                   I


IS


UNIVERSITY CF MICEAN
iII I  vI li     iI1
39015 00535 2334




k...                                                 -  -  -
I




EMP"'.1