Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth
Page 99
Of courtiers, banners, and a length of guards;
Or captive led in abject weeds, and jingling 455
His slender manacles; or romping girl
Bounced, leapt, and pawed the air; or mumbling sire,
A scarecrow pattern of old age, patched up
Of all the tatters of infirmity,
All loosely put together, hobbled in 460
Stumping upon a cane, with which he smites
From time to time the solid boards and makes them
Prat somewhat loudly of the whereabout
Of one so overloaded with his years.
But what of this? — the laugh, the grin, grimace, 465
And all the antics and buffoonery,
The least of them not lost, were all received
With charitable pleasure. Through the night,
Between the show, and many-headed mass
Of the spectators, and each little nook 470
That had 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 blowing round her, among grass 475
And rustling leaves. Enchanting age and sweet —
Romantic almost, looked at through a space,
How small, of intervening years! For then,
Though surely no mean progress had been made
In meditations holy and sublime, 480
Yet something of a girlish childlike gloss
Of novelty survived for scenes like these —
Pleasure that had been handed down from times
When at a country playhouse, having caught
In summer through the fractured wall a glimpse 485
Of daylight, at the thought of where I was
I gladdened more than if I had beheld
Before me some bright cavern of romance,
Or than we do when on our beds we lie
At night, in warmth, when rains are beating hard. 490
The matter which detains me now will seem
To many neither dignified enough
Nor arduous, and is doubtless in itself
Humble and low — yet not to be despised
By those who have observed the curious props 495
By which the perishable hours of life
Rest on each other, and the world of thought
Exists and is sustained. More lofty themes,
Such as at least do wear a prouder face,
Might here be spoken of; but when I think 500
Of these I feel the imaginative power
Languish within me. Even then it slept,
When, wrought upon by tragic sufferings,
The heart was full — amid my sobs and tears
It slept, even in the season of my youth. 505
For though I was most passionately moved,
And yielded to the changes of the scene
With most obsequious feeling, yet all this
Passed not beyond the suburbs of the mind.
If aught there were of real grandeur here 510
‘Twas only then when gross realities,
The incarnation of the spirits that moved
Amid the poet’s beauteous world — called forth
With that distinctness which a contrast gives,
Or opposition — made me recognise 515
As by a glimpse, the things which I had shaped
And yet not shaped, had seen and scarcely seen,
Had felt, and thought of in my solitude.
Pass we from entertainments that are such
Professedly, to others titled higher, 520
Yet, in the estimate of youth at least,
More near akin to these than names imply —
I mean the brawls of lawyers in their courts
Before the ermined judge, or that great stage
Where senators, tongue-favored men, perform, 525
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, Glocesters, Salisburys of old — 530
Which 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 — 535
O presence of delight, can patience e’er
Grow weary of attending on a track
That kindles with such glory? Marvellous,
The enchantment spreads and rises — all are rapt
Astonished — like a hero in romance 540
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 is,
Grows tedious even in a young man’s ear. 545
These are grave follies; other public shows
The capital city teems with of a kind
More light — and where but in the holy church?
There have I seen a comely bachelor,
fresh from a toilette of two hours, ascend 550
The pulpit, 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 555
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, 560
Moses, and he who penned the other day
The Death of Abel, Shakespear, Doctor Young,
And Ossian — doubt not, ‘tis the naked truth —
Summoned from streamy Morven, each and all
Must in their turn lend ornament and flowers 565
To entwine the crook of eloquence with which
This pretty shepherd, pride of all the plains,
Leads up and down his captivated flock.
I glance but at a few conspicuous marks,
Leaving ten thousand others that do each — 570
In hall or court, conventicle, or shop,
In public room or private, park or street —
With fondness reared on his own pedestal,
Look out for admiration. Folly, vice,
Extravagance in gesture, mien and dress, 575
And all the strife of singularity —
Lies to the ear, and lies to every sense —
Of these and of the living shapes they wear
There is no end. Such candidates for regard,
Although well pleased to be where they were found, 580
I did not hunt after or 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
Today, tomorrow will be — took of them 585
Such willing note as, on some errand bound
Of pleasure or of love, some traveller might,
Among a thousand other images,
Of sea-shells that bestud the sandy beach,
Or daisies swarming through the fields in June. 590
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.
O friend, one feeling was there which belonged 595
To this great city by exclusive right:
How often in the overflowing streets
Have I gone forwards with the crow
d, and said
Unto myself, ‘The face of every one
That passes by me is a mystery.’ 600
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 montains, or appears in dreams, 605
And all the ballast of familiar life —
The present, and the past, hope, fear, all stays,
All laws of acting, thinking, speaking man —
Went from me, neither knowing me, nor known.
And once, far travelled in such mood, beyond 610
The reach of common indications, lost
Amid the moving pageant, ‘twas my chance
Abruptly to be smitten with the view
Of a blind beggar, who, with upright face,
Stood propped against a wall, upon his chest 615
Wearing a written paper, to explain
The story of the man, and who he was.
My mind did at this spectacle turn round
As with the might of waters, and it seemed
To me that in this label was a type 620
Or emblem of the utmost that we know
Both of ourselves and of the universe,
And on the shape of this unmoving man,
His fix`ed face and sightless eyes, I looked,
As if admonished from another world. 625
Though reared upon the base of outward things,
These chiefly are such structures as the mind
Builds for itself. Scenes different there are —
Full-formed — which take, with small internal help,
Possession of the faculties: the peace 630
Of night, for instance, the 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; 635
The calmness, beauty, of the spectacle,
Sky, stillness, moonshine, empty streets, and sounds
Unfrequent as in desarts; at late hours
Of winter evenings when unwholesome rains
Are falling hard, with people yet astir, 640
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, 645
Even as we give them welcome, or assist —
Are prompt, or are remiss. 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, 650
Mobs, riots, or rejoicings? From those sights
Take one, an annual festival, the fair
Holden where martyrs suffered in past time,
And named of St. Bartholomew, there see
A work that’s finished to our hands, that lays, 655
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 — 660
Upon some showman’s platform. What a hell
For eyes and ears, what anarchy and din
Barbarian and infernal—’tis a dream
Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound.
Below, the open space, through every nook 665
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;
And chattering monkeys dangling from their poles, 670
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 675
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, 680
Blue-breeched, pink-vested, and with 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, 685
Giants, ventriloquists, the invisible girl,
The bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
The waxwork, clockwork, all the marvellous craft
Of modern Merlins, wild beasts, puppet-shows,
All out-o’-th’-way, far-fetched, perverted things, 690
All freaks of Nature, all Promethean thoughts
Of man — his dulness, madness, and other feats,
All jumbled up together to make up
This parliament of monsters. Tents and booths
Meanwhile — as if the whole were one vast mill — 695
Are vomiting, receiving, on all sides,
Men, women, three-years’ children, babes in arms.
O, blank confusion, and a type not false
Of what the mighty city is itself
To all, except a straggler here and there — 700
To the whole swarm of its inhabitants —
An undistinguishable world to men,
The slaves unrespited of low pursuits,
Living amid the same perpetual flow
Of trivial objects, melted and reduced 705
To one identity by differences
That have no law, no meaning, and no end —
Oppression under which even highest minds
Must labour, whence the strongest are not free.
But though the picture weary out the eye, 710
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. 715
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 comes,
And comprehensiveness and memory, 720
From early converse with the works of God
Among all regions, chiefly where appear
Most obviously simplicity and power.
By influence habitual to the mind
The mountain’s outline and its steady form 725
Gives a pure grandeur, and its presence shapes
The measure and the prospect of the soul
To majesty: such virtue have the forms
Perennial of the ancient hills — nor less
The changeful language of their countenances 730
Gives movement of the thoughts, and multitude,
With order and relation. This (if still,
As hitherto, with freedom I may speak,
And the same perfect openness of mind,
Not violating any just restraint, 735
As I would hope, of real modesty),
This did I feel in that vast receptacle.
The spirit of Nature was upon me here,
The soul of beauty and enduring life
Was present as a habit, and diffused — 740
Through meagre lines and colours, and the press
Of self-destroying, transitory things —<
br />
Composure and ennobling harmony.
BOOK EIGHTH.
RETROSPECT: LOVE OF NATURE LEADING TO LOVE OF MANKIND
WHAT sounds are those, Helvellyn, which are heard
Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
Ascending as if distance had the power
To make the sounds more audible? What crowd
Is yon, assembled in the gay green field? 5
Crowd seems it, solitary hill, to thee,
Though but a little family of men —
Twice twenty — with their children and their wives,
And here and there a stranger interspersed.
It is a summer festival, a fair, 10
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 storms be not abroad
And mists have left him an unshrouded head. 15
Delightful day it is for all who dwell
In this secluded glen, and eagerly
They give it welcome. Long ere heat of noon,
Behold the cattle are driven down; the sheep
That have for traffic been culled out are penned 20
In cotes that stand together on the plain
Ranged side by side; the chaffering is begun;
The heifer lows uneasy at the voice
Of a new master; bleat the flocks aloud.
Booths are there none: a stall or two is here, 25
A lame man, or a blind (the one to beg,
The other to make music); hither too
From far, with basket slung upon her arm
Of hawker’s wares — books, pictures, combs, and pins —
Some aged woman finds her way again, 30
Year after year a punctual visitant;
The showman with his freight upon his back,
And once perchance in lapse of many years,
Prouder itinerant — mountebank, or he
Whose wonders in a covered wain lie hid. 35
But one is here, the loveliest of them all,
Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out
For gains — and who that sees her would not buy?
Fruits of her father’s orchard, apples, pears
(On that day only to such office stooping), 40
She carries in her basket, and walks round
Among the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamed
Of her new calling, blushing restlessly.
The children now are rich, the old man now
Is generous, so gaiety prevails 45
Which all partake of, young and old.
Immense
Is the recess, the circumambient world
Magnificent, by which they are embraced.
They move about upon the soft green field; 50
How little they, they and their doings, seem,