Their herds and flocks about them, they themselves,
And all which they can further or obstruct —
Through utter weakness pitiably dear,
As tender infants are — and yet how great, 55
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 lurking brooks from their invisible haunts, 60
And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stir,
And the blue sky that roofs their calm abode.
With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel
In that great city what I owed to thee:
High thoughts of God and man, and love of man, 65
Triumphant over all those loathsome sights
Of wretchedness and vice, a watchful eye,
Which, with the outside of our human life
Not satisfied, must read the inner mind.
For I already had been taught to love 70
My fellow-beings, to such habits trained
Among the woods and mountains, where I found
In thee a gracious guide to lead me forth
Beyond the bosom of my family,
My friends and youthful playmates. ‘Twas thy power 75
That raised the first complacency in me,
And noticeable kindliness of heart,
Love human to the creature in himself
As he appeared, a stranger in my path,
Before my eyes a brother of this world — 80
Thou first didst with those motions of delight
Inspire me. I remember, far from home
Once having strayed while yet a very child,
I saw a sight — and with what joy and love!
It was a day of exhalations spread 85
Upon the mountains, mists and steam-like fogs
Redounding everywhere, not vehement,
But calm and mild, gentle and beautiful,
With gleams of sunshine on the eyelet spots
And loopholes of the hills, wherever seen, 90
Hidden by quiet process, and as soon
Unfolded, to be huddled up again —
Along a narrow valley and profound
I journeyed, when aloft above my head,
Emerging from the silvery vapours, lo, 95
A shepherd and his dog, in open day.
Girt round with mists they stood, and looked about
From that enclosure small, inhabitants
Of an a¨erial island floating on,
As seemed, with that abode in which they were, 100
A little pendant area of grey rocks,
By the soft wind breathed forward. With delight
As bland almost, one evening I beheld —
And at as early age (the spectacle
Is common, but by me was then first seen) — 105
A shepherd in the bottom of a vale,
Towards the centre standing, who with voice,
And hand waved to and fro as need required,
Gave signal to his dog, thus teaching him
To chace along the mazes of steep crags 110
The flock he could not see. And so the brute —
Dear creature — with a man’s intelligence,
Advancing, or retreating on his steps,
Through every pervious strait, to right or left,
Thridded a way unbaffled, while the flock 115
Fled upwards from the terror of his bark
Through rocks and seams of turf with liquid gold
Irradiate — that deep farewell light by which
The setting sun proclaims the love he bears
To mountain regions. 120
Beauteous the domain
Where to the sense of beauty first my heart
Was opened — tract more exquisitely fair
Than in that paradise of ten thousand trees,
Or Gehol’s famous gardens, in a clime 125
Chosen
from widest empire, for delight
Of the Tartarian dynasty composed
Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulous
(China’s stupendous mound!) by patient skill
Of myriads, and boon Nature’s lavish help: 130
Scene linked to scene, and ever-growing change,
Soft, grand, or gay, with palaces and domes
Of pleasure spangled over, shady dells
For eastern monasteries, sunny mounds
With temples crested, bridges, gondolas, 135
Rocks, dens and groves of foliage, taught to melt
Into each other their obsequious hues —
Going and gone again, in subtile chace,
Too fine to be pursued — or standing forth
In no discordant opposition, strong 140
And gorgeous as the colours side by side
Bedded among the plumes of tropic birds;
And mountains over all, embracing all,
And all the landscape endlessly enriched
With waters running, falling, or asleep. 145
But lovelier far than this the paradise
Where I was reared, in Nature’s primitive gifts
Favored no less, and more to every sense
Delicious, seeing that the sun and sky,
The elements, and seasons in their change, 150
Do find their dearest fellow-labourer there
The heart of man — a district on all sides
The fragrance breathing of humanity,
Man free, man working for himself, with choice
Of time, and place, and object; by his wants, 155
His comforts, native occupations, cares,
Conducted on to individual ends
Or social, and still followed by a train,
Unwooed, unthought-of even: simplicity,
And beauty, and inevitable grace. 160
Yea, doubtless, at any age when but a glimpse
Of those resplendent gardens, with their frame
Imperial, and elaborate ornaments,
Would to a child be transport over-great,
When but a half-hour’s roam through such a place 165
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
With the ordinary human interests
Which they embosom — all without regard 170
As both may seem — are fastening on the heart
Insensibly, each with the other’s help,
So that we love, not knowing that we love,
And feel, not knowing whence our feeling comes.
Such league have these two principles of joy 175
In our affections. I have singled out
Some moments, the earliest that I could, in which
Their several currents, blended into one —
Weak yet, and gathering imperceptibly —
Flowed in by gushes. My first human love, 180
As hath been mentioned, did incline to those
Whose occupations and concerns were most
Illustrated by Nature, and adorned,
And shepherds were the men who pleased me first:
Not such as, in Arcadian fastnesses 185
Sequestered, handed down among themselves,
So ancient poets sing, the golden age;
Nor such — a second race, allied to these —
As Shakespeare in the wood of Arden placed,
Where Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede, 190
Or there where Florizel and Perdita
Together dance, 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 195
Their May-bush, and along the streets in flocks
Parading, with a song of t
aunting rhymes
Aimed at the laggards slumbering within doors —
Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,
Tales of the maypole dance, and flowers that decked 200
The posts and the kirk-pillars, and of youths,
That each one with his maid at break of day,
By annual custom, issued forth in troops
To drink the waters of some favorite well,
And hang it round with garlands. This, alas, 205
Was but a dream: the times had scattered all
These lighter graces, and the rural ways
And manners which it was my chance to see
In childhood were severe and unadorned,
The unluxuriant produce of a life 210
Intent on little but substantial needs,
Yet beautiful — and beauty that was felt.
But images of danger and distress
And suffering, these took deepest hold of me,
Man suffering among awful powers and forms: 215
Of this I heard and saw enough to make
The imagination restless — nor was free
Myself from frequent perils. Nor were tales
Wanting, the tragedies of former times,
Or hazards and escapes, which in my walks 220
I carried with me among crags and woods
And mountains; and of these may here be told
One as recorded by my household dame.
‘At the first falling of autumnal snows
A shepherd and his son one day went forth’, 225
Thus did the matron’s tale begin, ‘to seek
A straggler of their flock. They both had ranged
Upon this service the preceding day
All over their own pastures and beyond,
And now, at sunrise sallying out again, 230
Renewed their search, begun where from Dove Crag —
Ill home for bird so gentle — they looked down
On Deepdale Head, and Brothers Water (named
From those two brothers that were drowned therein)
Thence, northward, having passed by Arthur’s Seat, 235
To Fairfield’s highest summit. On the right
Leaving St Sunday’s Pike, to Grisedale Tarn
They shot, and over that cloud-loving hill,
Seat Sandal — a fond lover of the clouds —
Thence up Helvellyn, a superior mount 240
With prospect underneath of Striding Edge
And Grisedale’s houseless vale, along the brink
Of Russet Cove, and those two other coves,
Huge skeletons of crags, which from the trunk
Of old Helvellyn spread their arms abroad 245
And make a stormy harbour for the winds.
Far went those shepherds in their devious quest,
From mountain ridges peeping as they passed
Down into every glen; at length the boy
Said, “Father, with your leave I will go back, 250
And range the ground which we have searched before.”
So speaking, southward down the hill the lad
Sprang like a gust of wind, crying aloud,
“I know where I shall find him.” ‘For take note’,
Said here my grey-haired dame, ‘that though the storm 255
Drive one of these poor creatures miles and miles,
If he can crawl he will return again
To his own hills, the spots where when a lamb
He learnt to pasture at his mother’s side.
After so long a labour suddenly 260
Bethinking him of this, the boy
Pursued his way towards a brook whose course
Was through that unfenced tract of mountain ground
Which to his father’s little farm belonged,
The home and ancient birthright of their flock. 265
Down the deep channel of the stream he went,
Prying through every nook. Meanwhile the rain
Began to fall upon the mountain tops,
Thick storm and heavy which for three hours’ space
Abated not, and all that time the boy 270
Was busy in his search, until at length
He spied the sheep upon a plot of grass,
An island in the brook. It was a place
Remote and deep, piled round with rocks, where foot
Of man or beast was seldom used to tread; 275
But now, when everywhere the summer grass
Had failed, this one adventurer, hunger-pressed,
Had left his fellows, and made his way alone
To the green plot of pasture in the brook.
Before the boy knew well what he had seen, 280
He leapt upon the island with proud heart
And with a prophet’s joy. Immediately
The sheep sprang forward to the further shore
And was borne headlong by the roaring flood —
At this the boy looked round him, and his heart 285
Fainted with fear. Thrice did he turn his face
To either brink, nor could he summon up
The courage that was needful to leap back
Cross the tempestuous torrent: so he stood,
A prisoner on the island, not without 290
More than one thought of death and his last hour.
Meanwhile the father had returned alone
To his own house; and now at the approach
Of evening he went forth to meet his son,
Conjecturing vainly for what cause the boy 295
Had stayed so long. The shepherd took his way
Up his own mountain grounds, where, as he walked
Along the steep that overhung the brook
He seemed to hear a voice, which was again
Repeated, like the whistling of a kite. 300
At this, now knowing why, as oftentimes
Long afterwards he has been heard to say,
Down to the brook he went, and tracked its course
Upwards among the o’erhanging rocks — nor thus
Had he gone far, ere he espied the boy, 305
Where on that little plot of ground he stood
Right in the middle of the roaring stream,
Now stronger every moment and more fierce.
The sight was such as no one could have seen
Without distress and fear. The shepherd heard 310
The outcry of his son, he stretched his staff
Towards him, bade him leap — which word scarce said,
The boy was safe within his father’s arms.’
Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,
Long springs and tepid winters on the banks 315
Of delicate Galesus — and no less
Those scattered along Adria’s myrtle shores —
Smooth life the herdman and his snow-white herd,
To triumphs and to sacrificial rites
Devoted, on the inviolable stream 320
Of rich Clitumnus; and the goatherd lived
As sweetly underneath the pleasant brows
Of cool Lucretilis, where the pipe was heard
Of Pan, the invisible God, thrilling the rocks
With tutelary music, from all harm 325
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 and serene;
Yet there, as for herself, had Nature framed 330
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 335
And intricate recesses, creek or bay
Sheltered within a shelter, where at large
The shepherd strays, a rolling hut hi
s home:
Thither he comes with springtime, there abides
All summer, and at sunrise ye may hear 340
His flute or flagelet resounding far.
There’s not a nook or hold of that vast space,
Nor strait where passage is, but it shall have
In turn its visitant, telling there his hours
In unlaborious pleasure, with no task 345
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 350
I saw when, from the melancholy walls
Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed
My daily walk along that chearful plain,
Which, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west
And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge 355
Of the Hercynian forest. Yet hail to you,
Your rocks and precipices, ye that seize
The heart with firmer grasp, your snows and streams
Ungovernable, and your terrifying winds,
That howled so dismally when I have been 360
Companionless among your solitudes!
There, ‘tis the shepherd’s task the winter long
To wait upon the storms: of their approach
Sagacious, from the height he drives his flock
Down into sheltering coves, and feeds them there 365
Through the hard time, long as the storm is ‘locked’
(So do they phrase it), bearing from the stalls
A toilsome burthen up the craggy ways
To strew it on the snow. And when the spring
Looks out, and all the mountains dance with lambs, 370
He through the enclosures won from the steep waste,
And through the lower heights hath gone his rounds;
And when the flock with warmer weather climbs
Higher and higher, him his office leads
To range among them through the hills dispersed, 375
And watch their goings, whatsoever track
Each wanderer chuses for itself — a work
That lasts the summer through. He quits his home
At dayspring, and no sooner doth the sun
Begin to strike him with a fire-like heat, 380
Than he lies down upon some shining place,
And breakfasts with his dog. When he hath stayed —
As for the most he doth — beyond this time,
He springs up with a bound, and then away!
Ascending fast with his long pole in hand, 385
Or winding in and out among the crags.
What need to follow him through what he does
Or sees in his day’s march? He feels himself
In those vast regions where his service is
A freeman, wedded to his life of hope 390
And hazard, and hard labour interchanged
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 100
