Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  From life or death, from man or devil;

  He wheels—and, making many stops,

  Brandished his crutch against the mountain tops; 580

  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!

  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; 590

  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; 600

  To quit the slow-paced waggon’s side,

  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 storm—

  Glimmering through the twilight pale;

  And Ghimmer-crag, 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, 610

  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 620

  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, 630

  By trees and lingering twilight made!

  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, 640

  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

  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) 650

  The stately waggon is ascending,

  With faithful Benjamin attending,

  Apparent now beside his team—

  Now 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. 660

  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; 670

  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, 680

  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 690

  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 screen—700

  Him 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; 710

  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 flight—

  The wished-for object is in sight;

  Yet, trust the Muse, it rather hath

  Stirred him up to livelier wrath;

  Which he stifles, moody man! 720

  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, 730

  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;

  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, 740

  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 Mastiff’s side,

  Tethered to the waggon’s tail:750

  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, 760

  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; 770

  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, 780

  Two 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 me—and I left the theme

  Untouched—in spite of many a gleam

  Of fancy which thereon was shed,

  Like pleasant sunbeams shifting still 790

  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, 800

  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. 810

  —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 820

  Of echoes, to his march kept time;

  When little other business stirred,

  And little other sound was heard;

  In that delicious hour of balm,

  Stillness, solitude, and calm,

  While yet the valley is arrayed,

  On this side with a sober shade;

  On that is prodigally bright—

  Crag, lawn, and wood—with rosy light.

  —But most of all, thou Lordly Wain! 830

  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 840

  The summit of a cumbrous freight,

  A single traveller—and there

  Another; then perhaps a pair—

  The lame, the sickly, and the old;

  Men, 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, 850

  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!

  1805.

  FRENCH REVOLUTION AS IT APPEARED TO ENTHUSIASTS AT ITS COMMENCEMENT.

  REPRINTED FROM “THE FRIEND”

  OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

  For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

  Upon our side, we who were strong in love!

  Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

  But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! 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 10

  A prime Enchantress—to assist the work,

  Which then was going forward in her name!

  Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,

  The beauty wore of promise, that which sets

  (As at some moment might not be unfelt

  Among the bowers of paradise itself)

  The budding rose above the rose full blown.

  What temper at the prospect did not wake

  To happiness unthought of? The inert

  Were roused, and lively natures rapt away! 20

  They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

  The playfellows 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, 30

  And in the region of their peaceful selves;—

  Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty

  Did both find, helpers to their heart’s desire,

  And stuff at hand, plastic as they could 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

  Of all of us,—the place where in the end

  We find our happiness, or not at all! 40

  1805.

  THE PRELUDE

  OR, GROWTH OF A POET’S MIND; AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM

  ADVERTISEMENT

  The following Poem was commenced in the beginning of the year 1799, and completed in the summer of 1805.

  The design and occasion
of the work are described by the Author in his Preface to the EXCURSION, first published in 1814, where he thus speaks:—

  “Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such an employment.

  “As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them.

  “That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the Author’s intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it, was a determination to compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled the ‘Recluse’; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.

  “The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author’s mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the Ante-chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor pieces, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such connection with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.”

  Such was the Author’s language in the year 1814.

  It will thence be seen, that the present Poem was intended to be introductory to the RECLUSE, and that the RECLUSE, if completed, would have consisted of Three Parts. Of these, the Second Part alone, viz. the EXCURSION, was finished, and given to the world by the Author.

  The First Book of the First Part of the RECLUSE still remains in manuscript [now in print]; but the Third Part was only planned. The materials of which it would have been formed have, however, been incorporated, for the most part, in the Author’s other Publications, written subsequently to the EXCURSION.

  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,” p. 197, ed. 1817, or “Poetical Works,” by S. T. Coleridge, vol. i. p. 206.

  RYDAL MOUNT

  July 13th, 1850.

  THE PRELUDE BOOK FIRST