A lance he bore, and underneath one arm
A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell 80
Of a surpassing brightness. Much rejoiced
The dreaming man that he should have a guide
To lead him through the desert; and he thought,
While questioning himself what this strange freight
Which the newcomer carried through the waste 85
Could mean, the arab told him that the stone —
To give it in the language of the dream —
Was Euclid’s Elements. ‘And this’, said he,
‘This other’, pointing to the shell, ‘this book
Is something of more worth.’ ‘And, at the word, 90
The stranger’, said my friend continuing,
‘Stretched forth the shell towards me, 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, 95
A loud prophetic blast of harmony,
And ode in passion uttered, which foretold
Destruction to the children of the earth
By deluge now at hand. No sooner ceased
The song, but with calm look the arab said 100
That all was true, that it was even so
As had been spoken, and that he himself
Was going then to bury those two books —
The one that held acquaintance with the stars,
And wedded man to man by purest bond 105
Of nature, undisturbed by space or time;
Th’ other that was a god, yea many gods,
Had voices more than all the winds, and was
A joy, a consolation, and a hope.’
My friend continued, ‘Strange as it may seem 110
I wondered not, although I plainly saw
The one to be a stone, th’ other a shell,
Nor doubted once but that they both were books,
Having a perfect faith in all that passed.
A wish was now engendered in my fear 115
To cleave unto this man, and I begged leave
To share his errand with him. On he passed
Not heeding me; I followed, and took note
That he looked often backward with wild look,
Grasping his twofold treasure to his side. 120
Upon a dromedary, lance in rest,
He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
I fancied that he was the very knight
Whose tale Cervantes tells, yet not the knight,
But was an arab of the desert too, 125
Of these was neither, and was both at once.
His countenance meanwhile grew more disturbed,
And looking backwards when he looked I saw
A glittering light, and asked him whence it came.
“It is”, said he, “The waters of the deep 130
Gathering upon us.” Quickening then his pace
He left me; I called after him aloud;
He heeded not, but with his twofold charge
Beneath his arm — before me full in view —
I saw him riding o’er the desart sands 135
With the fleet waters of the drowning world
In chace 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 140
This arab phantom which my friend beheld,
This semi-Quixote, I to him have given
A substance, fancied him a living man —
A gentle dweller in the desart, crazed
By love, and feeling, and internal thought 145
Protracted among endless solitudes —
Have shaped him, in the oppression of his brain,
Wandering upon this quest and thus equipped.
And I have scarcely pitied him, have felt
A reverence for a being thus employed, 150
And thought that in the blind and awful lair
Of such a madness reason did lie couched.
Enow there are on earth to take in charge
Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves,
Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear — 155
Enow to think of these — yea, will I say,
In sober contemplation of the approach
Of such great overthrow, made manifest
By certain evidence, that I methinks
Could share that maniac’s anxiousness, could go 160
Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least
Me hath such deep entrancement half-possessed
When I have held a volume in my hand —
Poor earthly casket of immortal verse —
Shakespeare or Milton, labourers divine. 165
Mighty, indeed supreme, must be the power
Of living Nature which could thus so long
Detain me from the best of other thoughts.
Even in the lisping time of infancy
And, later down, in prattling childhood — even 170
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,
And intermingled strains of thankfulness
With their own thoughtless melodies. At least 175
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, O poet, brother of my soul, 180
Think not that I could ever pass along
Untouched by these remembrances; no, no,
But I was hurried forward by a stream
And could not stop. Yet wherefore should I speak,
Why call upon a few weak words to say 185
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 190
Tells 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 there be
Of power or pleasure, sown or fostered thus — 195
Peculiar to myself — let that remain
Where it lies hidden in its endless home
Among the depths of time. And yet it seems
That here, in memory of all books which lay
Their sure foundations in the heart of man, 200
Whether by native prose, or numerous verse,
That in the name of all inspir`ed souls —
From Homer the great thunderer, from the voice
Which roars along the bed of Jewish song,
And that, more varied and elaborate, 205
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 weary travellers when they rest themselves 210
By the highways and hedges: ballad-tunes,
Food for the hungry ears of little ones,
And of old men who have survived their joy —
It seemeth in behalf of these, the works,
And of the men who framed them, whether known, 215
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 220
For what we may become, and what we need,
>
Than Nature’s self which is the breath of God.
Rarely and with reluctance would I stoop
To transitory themes, yet I rejoice,
And, by these thoughts admonished, must speak out 225
Thanksgivings from my heart that I was reared
Safe from an evil which these days have laid
Upon the children of the land — a pest
That might have dried me up body and soul.
This verse is dedicate to Nature’s self 230
And things that teach as Nature teaches: then,
Oh, where had been the man, the poet where —
Where had we been we two, belov`ed friend,
If we, in lieu of wandering as we did
Through heights and hollows and bye-spots of tales 235
Rich with indigenous produce, open ground
Of fancy, happy pastures ranged at will,
Had been attended, followed, watched, and noosed,
Each in his several melancholy walk,
Stringed like a poor man’s heifer at its feed, 240
Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude;
Or rather like a stall`ed ox shut out
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. 245
Behold the parent hen amid her brood,
Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part
And straggle from her presence, still a brood,
And she herself from the maternal bond
Still undischarged. Yet doth she little more 250
Than move with them in tenderness and love,
A centre of the circle which they make;
And now and then — alike from need of theirs
And call of her own natural appetites —
She scratches, ransacks up the earth for food 255
Which they partake at pleasure. Early died
My honoured mother, she who was the heart
And hinge of all our learnings and our loves;
She left us destitute, and as we might
Trooping together. Little suits it me 260
To break upon the sabbath of her rest
With any thought that looks at others’ blame,
Nor would I praise her but in perfect love;
Hence am I checked, but I will boldly say
In gratitude, and for the sake of truth, 265
Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught,
Fetching her goodness rather from times past
Than shaping novelties from those to come,
Had no presumption, no such jealousy —
Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust 270
Our nature, but had virtual faith that He
Who fills the mother’s breasts with innocent milk
Doth also for our nobler part provide,
Under His great correction and controul,
As innocent instincts, and as innocent food. 275
This was her creed, and therefore she was pure
From feverish dread of error and mishap
And evil, overweeningly so called,
Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes,
Nor selfish with unnecessary cares, 280
Nor with impatience from the season asked
More than its timely produce — rather loved
The hours for what they are, than from regards
Glanced on their promises in restless pride.
Such was she: not from faculties more strong 285
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. 290
My drift hath scarcely
I fear been obvious, for I have recoiled
From showing as it is the monster birth
Engendered by these too industrious times.
Let few words paint it: ‘tis a child, no child, 295
But a dwarf man; in knowledge, virtue, skill,
In what he is not, and in what he is,
The noontide shadow of a man complete;
A worshipper of worldly seemliness —
Not quarrelsome, for that were far beneath 300
His dignity; with gifts he bubbles o’er
As generous as a fountain; selfishness
May not come near him, gluttony or pride;
The wandering beggers propagate his name,
Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun. 305
Yet deem him not for this a naked dish
Of goodness merely — he is garnished out.
Arch are his notices, and nice his sense
Of the ridiculous; deceit and guile,
Meanness and falsehood, he detects, can treat 310
With apt and graceful laughter; nor is blind
To the broad follies of the licensed world;
Though shrewd, yet innocent himself withal,
And can read lectures upon innocence.
He is fenced round, nay armed, for ought we know, 315
In panoply complete; and fear itself,
Natural or supernatural alike,
Unless it leap upon him in a dream,
Touches him not. Briefly, the moral part
Is perfect, and in learning and in books 320
He is a prodigy. His discourse moves slow,
Massy and ponderous as a prison door,
Tremendously embossed with terms of art.
Rank growth of propositions overruns
The stripling’s brain; the path in which he treads 325
Is choked with grammars. Cushion of divine
Was never such a type of thought profound
As is the pillow where he rests his head.
The ensigns of the empire which he holds —
The globe and sceptre of his royalties — 330
Are telescopes, and crucibles, and maps.
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, 335
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,
Takes nothing upon trust. His teachers stare,
The country people pray for God’s good grace, 340
And tremble at his deep experiments.
All things are put to question: he must live
Knowing that he grows wiser every day,
Or else not live at all, and seeing too
Each little drop of wisdom as it falls 345
Into the dimpling cistern of his heart.
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. 350
Now this is hollow, ‘tis a life of lies
From the beginning, and in lies must end.
Forth bring him to the air of common sense
And, fresh and shewy as it is, the corps
Slips from us into powder. Vanity, 355
That is his soul: there lives he, and there moves —
It is the soul of every thing he seeks —
That gone, nothing is left which he can love.
Nay, if a thought of purer birth should rise
To carry him towards a better clime, 360
Some busy helper still is on the watch
To drive him back, and pound him like a stray
With the pinfold of his own conceit,
Which is his home, his natural dwelling-place.
Oh, give us once again the wishing-cap 365
&n
bsp; 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. 370
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 art
To manage books, and things, and make them work 375
Gently on infant minds as does the sun
Upon a flower — the tutors of our youth,
The guides, the wardens of our faculties
And stewards of our labour, watchful men
And skilful in the usury of time, 380
Sages, who in their prescience would controul
All accidents, and to the very road
Which they have fashioned would confine us down
Like engines — when will they be taught
That in the unreasoning progress of the world 385
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 390
And islands of Winander — many a time
At evening, when the stars had just begun
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone
Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake, 395
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 400
Across the wat’ry 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 mirth and jocund din. And when it chanced 405
That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill,
Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprize
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene 410
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 415
In childhood ere he was full ten years old.
Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,
The vale where he was born; the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village school,
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 94
