Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  “If this be so,

  And Man,” said I, “be in his noblest shape

  Thus pitiably infirm; then, he who made,

  And who shall judge the creature, will forgive.

  —Yet, in its general tenor, your complaint

  Is all too true; and surely not misplaced: 370

  For, from this pregnant spot of ground, such thoughts

  Rise to the notice of a serious mind

  By natural exhalation. With the dead

  In their repose, the living in their mirth,

  Who can reflect, unmoved, upon the round

  Of smooth and solemnized complacencies,

  By which, on Christian lands, from age to age

  Profession mocks performance. Earth is sick,

  And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words

  Which States and Kingdoms utter when they talk 380

  Of truth and justice. Turn to private life

  And social neighbourhood; look we to ourselves;

  A light of duty shines on every day

  For all; and yet how few are warmed or cheered!

  How few who mingle with their fellow-men

  And still remain self-governed, and apart,

  Like this our honoured Friend; and thence acquire

  Right to expect his vigorous decline,

  That promises to the end a blest old age!”

  “Yet,” with a smile of triumph thus exclaimed 390

  The Solitary, “in the life of man,

  If to the poetry of common speech

  Faith may be given, we see as in a glass

  A true reflection of the circling year,

  With all its seasons. Grant that Spring is there,

  In spite of many a rough untoward blast,

  Hopeful and promising with buds and flowers;

  Yet where is glowing Summer’s long rich day,

  That ‘ought’ to follow faithfully expressed?

  And mellow Autumn, charged with bounteous fruit, 400

  Where is she imaged? in what favoured clime

  Her lavish pomp, and ripe magnificence?

  —Yet, while the better part is missed, the worse

  In man’s autumnal season is set forth

  With a resemblance not to be denied,

  And that contents him; bowers that hear no more

  The voice of gladness, less and less supply

  Of outward sunshine and internal warmth;

  And, with this change, sharp air and falling leaves,

  Foretelling aged Winter’s desolate sway. 410

  How gay the habitations that bedeck

  This fertile valley! Not a house but seems

  To give assurance of content within;

  Embosomed happiness, and placid love;

  As if the sunshine of the day were met

  With answering brightness in the hearts of all

  Who walk this favoured ground. But chance-regards,

  And notice forced upon incurious ears;

  These, if these only, acting in despite

  Of the encomiums by my Friend pronounced 420

  On humble life, forbid the judging mind

  To trust the smiling aspect of this fair

  And noiseless commonwealth. The simple race

  Of mountaineers (by nature’s self removed

  From foul temptations, and by constant care

  Of a good shepherd tended as themselves

  Do tend their flocks) partake man’s general lot

  With little mitigation. They escape,

  Perchance, the heavier woes of guilt; feel not

  The tedium of fantastic idleness:430

  Yet life, as with the multitude, with them

  Is fashioned like an ill-constructed tale;

  That on the outset wastes its gay desires,

  Its fair adventures, its enlivening hopes,

  And pleasant interests—for the sequel leaving

  Old things repeated with diminished grace;

  And all the laboured novelties at best

  Imperfect substitutes, whose use and power

  Evince the want and weakness whence they spring.”

  While in this serious mood we held discourse, 440

  The reverend Pastor toward the churchyard gate

  Approached; and, with a mild respectful air

  Of native cordiality, our Friend

  Advanced to greet him. With a gracious mien

  Was he received, and mutual joy prevailed.

  Awhile they stood in conference, and I guess

  That he, who now upon the mossy wall

  Sate by my side, had vanished, if a wish

  Could have transferred him to the flying clouds,

  Or the least penetrable hiding-place 450

  In his own valley’s rocky guardianship.

  —For me, I looked upon the pair, well pleased:

  Nature had framed them both, and both were marked

  By circumstance, with intermixture fine

  Of contrast and resemblance. To an oak

  Hardy and grand, a weather-beaten oak,

  Fresh in the strength and majesty of age,

  One might be likened: flourishing appeared,

  Though somewhat past the fulness of his prime,

  The other—like a stately sycamore, 460

  That spreads, in gentle pomp, its honied shade.

  A general greeting was exchanged; and soon

  The Pastor learned that his approach had given

  A welcome interruption to discourse

  Grave, and in truth too often sad.—”Is Man

  A child of hope? Do generations press

  On generations, without progress made?

  Halts the individual, ere his hairs be grey,

  Perforce? Are we a creature in whom good

  Preponderates, or evil? Doth the will 470

  Acknowledge reason’s law? A living power

  Is virtue, or no better than a name,

  Fleeting as health or beauty, and unsound?

  So that the only substance which remains,

  (For thus the tenor of complaint hath run)

  Among so many shadows, are the pains

  And penalties of miserable life,

  Doomed to decay, and then expire in dust!

  —Our cogitations, this way have been drawn,

  These are the points,” the Wanderer said, “on which 480

  Our inquest turns.—Accord, good Sir! the light

  Of your experience to dispel this gloom:

  By your persuasive wisdom shall the heart

  That frets, or languishes, be stilled and cheered.”

  “Our nature,” said the Priest, in mild reply,

  “Angels nay weigh and fathom: they perceive,

  With undistempered and unclouded spirit,

  The object as it is; but, for ourselves,

  That speculative height ‘we’ may not reach.

  The good and evil are our own; and we 490

  Are that which we would contemplate from far.

  Knowledge, for us, is difficult to gain—

  Is difficult to gain, and hard to keep—

  As virtue’s self; like virtue is beset

  With snares; tried, tempted, subject to decay.

  Love, admiration, fear, desire, and hate,

  Blind were we without these: through these alone

  Are capable to notice or discern

  Or to record; we judge, but cannot be

  Indifferent judges. ‘Spite of proudest boast, 500

  Reason, best reason, is to imperfect man

  An effort only, and a noble aim;

  A crown, an attribute of sovereign power,

  Still to be courted—never to be won.

  —Look forth, or each man dive into himself;

  What sees he but a creature too perturbed;

  That is transported to excess; that yearns,

  Regrets, or trembles, wrongly, or too much;

  Hopes rashly, in di
sgust as rash recoils;

  Battens on spleen, or moulders in despair; 510

  Thus comprehension fails, and truth is missed;

  Thus darkness and delusion round our path

  Spread, from disease, whose subtle injury lurks

  Within the very faculty of sight.

  Yet for the general purposes of faith

  In Providence, for solace and support,

  We may not doubt that who can best subject

  The will to reason’s law, can strictliest live

  And act in that obedience, he shall gain

  The clearest apprehension of those truths, 520

  Which unassisted reason’s utmost power

  Is too infirm to reach. But, waiving this,

  And our regards confining within bounds

  Of less exalted consciousness, through which

  The very multitude are free to range,

  We safely may affirm that human life

  Is either fair and tempting, a soft scene

  Grateful to sight, refreshing to the soul,

  Or a forbidden tract of cheerless view;

  Even as the same is looked at, or approached. 530

  Thus, when in changeful April fields are white

  With new-fallen snow, if from the sullen north

  Your walk conduct you hither, ere the sun

  Hath gained his noontide height, this churchyard, filled

  With mounds transversely lying side by side

  From east to west, before you will appear

  An unillumined, blank, and dreary plain,

  With more than wintry cheerlessness and gloom

  Saddening the heart. Go forward, and look back;

  Look, from the quarter whence the lord of light, 540

  Of life, of love, and gladness doth dispense

  His beams; which, unexcluded in their fall,

  Upon the southern side of every grave

  Have gently exercised a melting power;

  ‘Then’ will a vernal prospect greet your eye,

  All fresh and beautiful, and green and bright,

  Hopeful and cheerful:—vanished is the pall

  That overspread and chilled the sacred turf,

  Vanished or hidden; and the whole domain,

  To some, too lightly minded, might appear 550

  A meadow carpet for the dancing hours.

  —This contrast, not unsuitable to life,

  Is to that other state more apposite,

  Death and its two-fold aspect! wintry—one,

  Cold, sullen, blank, from hope and joy shut out;

  The other, which the ray divine hath touched,

  Replete with vivid promise, bright as spring.”

  “We see, then, as we feel,” the Wanderer thus

  With a complacent animation spake,

  “And in your judgment, Sir! the mind’s repose 560

  On evidence is not to be ensured

  By act of naked reason. Moral truth

  Is no mechanic structure, built by rule;

  And which, once built, retains a stedfast shape

  And undisturbed proportions; but a thing

  Subject, you deem, to vital accidents;

  And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,

  Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head

  Floats on the tossing waves. With joy sincere

  I re-salute these sentiments confirmed 570

  By your authority. But how acquire

  The inward principle that gives effect

  To outward argument; the passive will

  Meek to admit; the active energy,

  Strong and unbounded to embrace, and firm

  To keep and cherish? how shall man unite

  With self-forgetting tenderness of heart

  An earth-despising dignity of soul?

  Wise in that union, and without it blind!”

  “The way,” said I, “to court, if not obtain 580

  The ingenuous mind, apt to be set aright;

  This, in the lonely dell discoursing, you

  Declared at large; and by what exercise

  From visible nature, or the inner self

  Power may be trained, and renovation brought

  To those who need the gift. But, after all,

  Is aught so certain as that man is doomed

  To breathe beneath a vault of ignorance?

  The natural roof of that dark house in which

  His soul is pent! How little can be known— 590

  This is the wise man’s sigh; how far we err—

  This is the good man’s not unfrequent pang!

  And they perhaps err least, the lowly class

  Whom a benign necessity compels

  To follow reason’s least ambitious course;

  Such do I mean who, unperplexed by doubt,

  And unincited by a wish to look

  Into high objects farther than they may,

  Pace to and fro, from morn till eventide,

  The narrow avenue of daily toil 600

  For daily bread.”

  “Yes,” buoyantly exclaimed

  The pale Recluse—”praise to the sturdy plough,

  And patient spade; praise to the simple crook,

  And ponderous loom—resounding while it holds

  Body and mind in one captivity;

  And let the light mechanic tool be hailed

  With honour; which, encasing by the power

  Of long companionship, the artist’s hand,

  Cuts off that hand, with all its world of nerves,

  From a too busy commerce with the heart! 610

  —Inglorious implements of craft and toil,

  Both ye that shape and build, and ye that force,

  By slow solicitation, earth to yield

  Her annual bounty, sparingly dealt forth

  With wise reluctance; you would I extol,

  Not for gross good alone which ye produce,

  But for the impertinent and ceaseless strife

  Of proofs and reasons ye preclude—in those

  Who to your dull society are born,

  And with their humble birthright rest content. 620

  —Would I had ne’er renounced it!”

  A slight flush

  Of moral anger previously had tinged

  The old Man’s cheek; but, at this closing turn

  Of self-reproach, it passed away. Said he,

  “That which we feel we utter; as we think

  So have we argued; reaping for our pains

  No visible recompense. For our relief

  You,” to the Pastor turning thus he spake,

  “Have kindly interposed. May I entreat

  Your further help? The mine of real life 630

  Dig for us; and present us, in the shape

  Of virgin ore, that gold which we, by pains

  Fruitless as those of aery alchemists,

  Seek from the torturing crucible. There lies

  Around us a domain where you have long

  Watched both the outward course and inner heart:

  Give us, for our abstractions, solid facts;

  For our disputes, plain pictures. Say what man

  He is who cultivates yon hanging field;

  What qualities of mind she bears, who comes, 640

  For morn and evening service, with her pail,

  To that green pasture; place before our sight

  The family who dwell within yon house

  Fenced round with glittering laurel; or in that

  Below, from which the curling smoke ascends.

  Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,

  And have the dead around us, take from them

  Your instances; for they are both best known,

  And by frail man most equitably judged.

  Epitomise the life; pronounce, you can, 650

  Authentic epitaphs on some of these

  Who, from their lowly mansions hither brought,

  Beneath this turf
lie mouldering at our feet:

  So, by your records, may our doubts be solved;

  And so, not searching higher we may learn

  ‘To prize the breath we share with human kind;

  And look upon the dust of man with awe’.”

  The Priest replied—”An office you impose

  For which peculiar requisites are mine;

  Yet much, I feel, is wanting—else the task 660

  Would be most grateful. True indeed it is

  That they whom death has hidden from our sight

  Are worthiest of the mind’s regard; with these

  The future cannot contradict the past:

  Mortality’s last exercise and proof

  Is undergone; the transit made that shows

  The very Soul, revealed as she departs.

  Yet, on your first suggestion, will I give,

  Ere we descend into these silent vaults,

  One picture from the living.

  You behold, 670

  High on the breast of yon dark mountain, dark

  With stony barrenness, a shining speck

  Bright as a sunbeam sleeping till a shower

  Brush it away, or cloud pass over it;

  And such it might be deemed—a sleeping sunbeam;

  But ‘tis a plot of cultivated ground,

  Cut off, an island in the dusky waste;

  And that attractive brightness is its own.

  The lofty site, by nature framed to tempt

  Amid a wilderness of rocks and stones 680

  The tiller’s hand, a hermit might have chosen,

  For opportunity presented, thence

  Far forth to send his wandering eye o’er land

  And ocean, and look down upon the works,

  The habitations, and the ways of men,

  Himself unseen! But no tradition tells

  That ever hermit dipped his maple dish

  In the sweet spring that lurks ‘mid yon green fields;

  And no such visionary views belong

  To those who occupy and till the ground, 690

  High on that mountain where they long have dwelt

  A wedded pair in childless solitude.

  A house of stones collected on the spot,

  By rude hands built, with rocky knolls in front.

  Backed also by a ledge of rock, whose crest

  Of birch-trees waves over the chimney top;

  A rough abode—in colour, shape, and size,

  Such as in unsafe times of border-war

  Might have been wished for and contrived, to elude

  The eye of roving plunderer—for their need 700

  Suffices; and unshaken bears the assault

  Of their most dreaded foe, the strong Southwest

  In anger blowing from the distant sea.

  —Alone within her solitary hut;

  There, or within the compass of her fields,

  At any moment may the Dame be found,

  True as the stock-dove to her shallow nest