Of feeling, the pure breath of real life, 475
We were not left untouched. With such a book
Before our eyes we could not chuse but read
A frequent lesson of sound tenderness,
The universal reason of mankind,
The truth of young and old. Nor, side by side 480
Pacing, two brother pilgrims, or alone
Each with his humour, could we fail to abound —
Craft this which hath been hinted at before —
In dreams and fictions pensively composed:
Dejection taken up for pleasure’s sake, 485
And gilded sympathies, the willow wreath,
Even among those solitudes sublime,
And sober posies of funereal flowers,
Culled from the gardens of the Lady Sorrow,
Did sweeten many a meditative hour. 490
Yet still in me, mingling with these delights,
Was something of stern mood, an under-thirst
Of vigor, never utterly asleep.
Far different dejection once was mine —
A deep and genuine sadness then I felt — 495
The circumstances I will here relate
Even as they were. Upturning with a band
Of travellers, from the Valais we had clomb
Along the road that leads to Italy;
A length of hours, making of these our guides, 500
Did we advance, and, having reached an inn
Among the mountains, we together ate
Our noon’s repast, from which the travellers rose
Leaving us at the board. Erelong we followed,
Descending by the beaten road that led 505
Right to a rivulet’s edge, and there broke off;
The only track now visible was one
Upon the further side, right opposite,
And up a lofty mountain. This we took,
After a little scruple and short pause, 510
And climbed with eagerness — though not, at length,
Without surprize and some anxiety
On finding that we did not overtake
Our comrades gone before. By fortunate chance,
While every moment now encreased our doubts, 515
A peasant met us, and from him we learned
That to the place 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 — 520
And further, that thenceforward all our course
Was downwards with the current of that stream.
Hard of belief, we questioned him again,
And all the answers which the man returned
To our inquiries, in their sense and substance 525
Translated by the feelings which we had,
Ended in this — that we had crossed the Alps.
Imagination! — lifting up itself
Before the eye and progress of my song
Like an unfathered vapour, here that power, 530
In all the might of its endowments, came
Athwart me. I was lost as in a cloud,
Halted without a struggle to break through,
And now, recovering, to my soul I say
‘I recognise thy glory’. In such strength 535
Of usurpation, in such visitings
Of awful promise, when the light of sense
Goes out in flashes that have shewn to us
The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,
There harbours whether we be young or old. 540
Our destiny, our nature, and our 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. 545
The mind beneath such banners militant
Thinks not of spoils or trophies, nor of aught
That may attest its prowess, blest in thoughts
That are their own perfection and reward —
Strong in itself, and in the access of joy 550
Which hides in like the overflowing Nile.
The dull and heavy slackening which ensued
Upon those tidings by the peasant given
Was soon dislodged; downwards we hurried fast,
And entered with the road which we had missed 555
Into a narrow chasm. The brook and road
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy pass,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow step. The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, 560
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
And everywhere along the hollow rent
Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears — 565
Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside
As if a voice were in them — the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light, 570
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,
Characters of the great apocalypse,
The types and symbols of eternity,
Of first, and last, and midst, and without end. 575
That night our lodging was an alpine house,
An inn, or hospital (as they are named),
Standing in that same valley by itself,
And close upon the confluence of two streams —
A dreary mansion, large beyond all need, 580
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 585
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, 590
Fit resting-place for such a visitant.
Locarno, spreading out in width like heaven,
And Como thou — a treasure by the earth
Kept to itself, a darling bosomed up
In Abyssinian privacy — I spake 595
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 600
League after league, and cloistral avenues
Where silence is if music be not there:
While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,
Through fond ambition of my heart I told
Your praises, nor can I approach you now 605
Ungreeted by a more melodious song,
Where tones of learned art and Nature mixed
May frame enduring language. Like a breeze
Or sunbeam over your domain I passed
In motion without pause; but ye have left 610
Your beauty with me, an impassioned sight
Of colours and of forms, whose power is sweet
And gracious, almost, might I dare to say,
As virtue is, or goodness — sweet as love,
Or the remembrance of a noble deed, 615
Or gentlest visitations of pure thought
When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked
Religiously in silent blessedness —
Sweet as this last itself, for such it is.
Through those delightful pathways we advanced 620
Two days, and still in presence of the lake,
Which winding up among the Alps now changed
Slowly its lovely countenance and put on
A sterner character. The second night,
In eagerness, and by report misled 625
Of those Italian clocks that speak the time
In fashion different from ours, we rose
By moonshine, doubting not that day was near,
And that, meanwhile, coasting the water’s edge
As hitherto, and with as plain a track 630
To be our guide, we might behold the scene
In its most deep repose. We left the town
Of Gravedona with this hope, but soon
Were lost, bewildered among woods immense,
Where, having wandered for a while, we stopped 635
And on a rock sate down to wait for day.
An open place it was and overlooked
From high the sullen water underneath,
On which a dull red image of the moon
Lay bedded, changing oftentimes its form 640
Like an uneasy snake. Long time we sate,
For scarcely more than one hour of the night —
Such was our error — had been gone when we
Renewed our journey. On the rock we lay
And wished to sleep, but could not for the stings 645
Of insects, which with noise like that of noon
Filled all the woods. The cry of unknown birds,
the mountains — more by darkness visible
And their own size, than any outward light —
The breathless wilderness of clouds, the clock 650
That told with unintelligible voice
The widely parted hours, the noise of streams,
And sometimes rustling motions nigh at hand
Which did not leave us free from personal fear,
And lastly, the withdrawing moon that set 655
Before us while she still was high in heaven —
These were our food, and such a summer night
Did to that pair of golden days succeed,
With now and then a doze and snatch of sleep,
On Como’s banks, the same delicious lake. 660
But here I must break off, and quit at once,
Though loth, the record of these wanderings,
A theme which may seduce me else beyond
All reasonable bounds. Let this alone
Be mentioned as a parting word, that not 665
In hollow exultation, dealing forth
Hyperboles of praise comparative;
Not rich one moment to be poor for ever;
Not prostrate, overborne — as if the mind
Itself were nothing, a mean pensioner 670
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 675
I saw, or heard, or felt, was but a stream
That flowed into a kindred stream, a gale
That helped me forwards, did administer
To grandeur and to tenderness — to the one
Directly, but to tender thoughts by means 680
Less often instantaneous in effect —
Conducted me to these along a path
Which, in the main, was more circuitous.
Oh most beloved friend, a glorious time,
A happy time that was. Triumphant looks 685
Were then the common language of all eyes:
As if awakened 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 vernal grove. 690
We left the Swiss exulting in the fate
Of their neighbours, and, when shortening fast
Our pilgrimage — nor distant far from home —
We crossed the Brabant armies on the fret
For battle in the cause of Liberty. 695
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 among them as a bird 700
Moves through the air, or as a fish pursues
Its business in its proper element.
I needed not that joy, I did not need
Such help: the ever-living universe
And independent spirit of pure youth 705
Were with me at that season, and delight
Was in all places spread around my steps
As constant as the grass upon the fields.
BOOK SEVENTH.
RESIDENCE IN LONDON
FIVE years are vanished since I first poured out,
Saluted by that animating breeze
Which met me issuing from the city’s walls,
A glad preamble to this verse. I sang
Aloud in dithyrambic fervour, deep 5
But short-lived uproar, like a torrent sent
Out of the bowels of a bursting cloud
Down Scawfell or Blencathara’s rugged sides,
A waterspout from heaven. But ‘twas not long
Ere the interrupted strain broke forth once more, 10
And flowed awhile in strength; then stopped for years —
Not heard again until a little space
Before last primrose-time. Belov`ed friend,
The assurances then given unto myself,
Which did beguile me of some heavy thoughts 15
At thy departure to a foreign land,
Have failed; for slowly doth this work advance.
Through the whole summer I have been at rest,
Partly from voluntary holiday
And part through outward hindrance. But I heard 20
After the hour of sunset yester-even,
Sitting within doors betwixt light and dark,
A voice that stirred me. ‘Twas a little band,
A quire of redbreasts gathered somewhere near
My threshold, minstrels from the distant woods 25
And dells, sent in by Winter to bespeak
For the old man a welcome, to announce
With preparation artful and benign —
Yea, the most gentle music of the year —
That their rough lord had left the surly north, 30
And hath begun his journey. A delight
At this unthought-of-greeting unawares
Smote me, a sweetness of the coming time,
And, listening, I half whispered, ‘We will be,
Ye heartsome choristers, ye and I will be 35
Brethren, and in the hearing of bleak winds
Will chaunt together.’ And, thereafter, walking
By later twilight on the hills I saw
A glow-worm, from beneath a dusky shade
Or canopy of the yet unwithered fern 40
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 itself,
The voiceless worm on the unfrequented hills, 45
Seemed sent on the same errand with the quire
Of winter that had warbled at my door,
And the whole year seemed tenderness and love.
The last night’s genial feeling overflowed
Upon this morning, and my favorite grove — 50
Now tossing its dark boughs in sun and wind —
Spreads through me a commotion like its own,
Something that fits me for the poet’s task,
Which we will now resume with chearful hope,
&n
bsp; Nor checked by aught of tamer argument 55
That lies before us, needful to be told.
Returned from that excursion, soon I bade
Farewell for ever to the private bowers
Of gowned students — quitted these, no more 60
To enter them, and pitched my vagrant tent,
A casual dweller and at large, among
The unfenced regions of society.
Yet undetermined to what plan of life
I should adhere, and seeming thence to have 65
A little space of intermediate time
Loose and at full command, to London first
I turned, if not in calmness, nevertheless
In no disturbance of excessive hope —
At ease from all ambition personal, 70
Frugal as there was need, and though self-willed,
Yet temperate and reserved, and wholly free
From dangerous passions. ‘Twas at least two years
Before this season when I first beheld
That mighty place, a transient visitant; 75
And now it pleased me my abode to fix
Single in the wide waste. To have a house,
It was enough — what matter for a home? —
That owned me, living chearfully abroad
With fancy on the stir from day to day, 80
And all my young affections out of doors.
There was a time when whatso’er is feigned
Of airy palaces and gardens built
By genii of romance, or hath in grave
Authentic history been set forth of Rome, 85
Alcairo, Babylon, or Persepolis,
Or given upon report by pilgrim friars
Of golden cities ten months’ journey deep
Among Tartarean wilds, fell short, far short,
Of that which I in simpleness believed 90
And thought of London — held me by a chain
Less strong of wonder and obscure delight.
I know not that herein I shot beyond
The common mark of childhood, but I well
Remember that among our flock of boys 95
Was one, a cripple from the birth, whom chance
Summoned from school to London — fortunate
And envied traveller — and when he returned,
After short absence, and I first set eyes
Upon his person, verily, though strange 100
The thing may seem, I was not wholly free
From disappointment to behold the same
Appearance, the same body, not to find
Some change, some beams of glory brought away
From that new region, Much I questioned him, 105
And every word he uttered, on my ears
Fell flatter than a cag`ed parrot’s note,
That answers unexpectedly awry,
And mocks the prompter’s listening. Marvellous things
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 97
