Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  Had marked the line, and strewn its surface o’er

  With pure cerulean gravel, from the heights

  Fetched by a neighbouring brook.—Across the vale

  The stately fence accompanied our steps;

  And thus the pathway, by perennial green

  Guarded and graced, seemed fashioned to unite,

  As by a beautiful yet solemn chain,

  The Pastor’s mansion with the house of prayer.

  Like image of solemnity, conjoined

  With feminine allurement soft and fair, 460

  The mansion’s self displayed;—a reverend pile

  With bold projections and recesses deep;

  Shadowy, yet gay and lightsome as it stood

  Fronting the noontide sun. We paused to admire

  The pillared porch, elaborately embossed;

  The low wide windows with their mullions old;

  The cornice, richly fretted, of grey stone;

  And that smooth slope from which the dwelling rose,

  By beds and banks Arcadian of gay flowers

  And flowering shrubs, protected and adorned: 470

  Profusion bright! and every flower assuming

  A more than natural vividness of hue,

  From unaffected contrast with the gloom

  Of sober cypress, and the darker foil

  Of yew, in which survived some traces, here

  Not unbecoming, of grotesque device

  And uncouth fancy. From behind the roof

  Rose the slim ash and massy sycamore,

  Blending their diverse foliage with the green

  Of ivy, flourishing and thick, that clasped 480

  The huge round chimneys, harbour of delight

  For wren and redbreast,—where they sit and sing

  Their slender ditties when the trees are bare.

  Nor must I leave untouched (the picture else

  Were incomplete) a relique of old times

  Happily spared, a little Gothic niche

  Of nicest workmanship; that once had held

  The sculptured image of some patron-saint,

  Or of the blessed Virgin, looking down

  On all who entered those religious doors. 490

  But lo! where from the rocky garden-mount

  Crowned by its antique summer-house—descends,

  Light as the silver fawn, a radiant Girl;

  For she hath recognised her honoured friend,

  The Wanderer ever welcome! A prompt kiss

  The gladsome Child bestows at his request;

  And, up the flowery lawn as we advance,

  Hangs on the old Man with a happy look,

  And with a pretty restless hand of love.

  —We enter—by the Lady of the place 500

  Cordially greeted. Graceful was her port:

  A lofty stature undepressed by time,

  Whose visitation had not wholly spared

  The finer lineaments of form and face;

  To that complexion brought which prudence trusts in

  And wisdom loves.—But when a stately ship

  Sails in smooth weather by the placid coast

  On homeward voyage, what—if wind and wave,

  And hardship undergone in various climes,

  Have caused her to abate the virgin pride, 510

  And that full trim of inexperienced hope

  With which she left her haven—not for this,

  Should the sun strike her, and the impartial breeze

  Play on her streamers, fails she to assume

  Brightness and touching beauty of her own,

  That charm all eyes. So bright, so fair, appeared

  This goodly Matron, shining in the beams

  Of unexpected pleasure.—Soon the board

  Was spread, and we partook a plain repast.

  Here, resting in cool shelter, we beguiled 520

  The mid-day hours with desultory talk;

  From trivial themes to general argument

  Passing, as accident or fancy led,

  Or courtesy prescribed. While question rose

  And answer flowed, the fetters of reserve

  Dropping from every mind, the Solitary

  Resumed the manners of his happier days;

  And in the various conversation bore

  A willing, nay, at times, a forward part;

  Yet with the grace of one who in the world 530

  Had learned the art of pleasing, and had now

  Occasion given him to display his skill,

  Upon the stedfast ‘vantage-ground of truth.

  He gazed, with admiration unsuppressed,

  Upon the landscape of the sun-bright vale,

  Seen, from the shady room in which we sate,

  In softened perspective; and more than once

  Praised the consummate harmony serene

  Of gravity and elegance, diffused

  Around the mansion and its whole domain; 540

  Not, doubtless, without help of female taste

  And female care.—”A blessed lot is yours!”

  The words escaped his lip, with a tender sigh

  Breathed over them: but suddenly the door

  Flew open, and a pair of lusty Boys

  Appeared, confusion checking their delight.

  —Not brothers they in feature or attire,

  But fond companions, so I guessed, in field,

  And by the river’s margin—whence they come,

  Keen anglers with unusual spoil elated. 550

  One bears a willow-pannier on his back,

  The boy of plainer garb, whose blush survives

  More deeply tinged. Twin might the other be

  To that fair girl who from the garden-mount

  Bounded:—triumphant entry this for him!

  Between his hands he holds a smooth blue stone,

  On whose capacious surface see outspread

  Large store of gleaming crimson-spotted trouts;

  Ranged side by side, and lessening by degrees

  Up to the dwarf that tops the pinnacle. 560

  Upon the board he lays the sky-blue stone

  With its rich freight; their number he proclaims;

  Tells from what pool the noblest had been dragged;

  And where the very monarch of the brook,

  After long struggle, had escaped at last—

  Stealing alternately at them and us

  (As doth his comrade too) a look of pride:

  And, verily, the silent creatures made

  A splendid sight, together thus exposed;

  Dead—but not sullied or deformed by death, 570

  That seemed to pity what he could not spare.

  But oh, the animation in the mien

  Of those two boys! yea in the very words

  With which the young narrator was inspired,

  When, as our questions led, he told at large

  Of that day’s prowess! Him might I compare,

  His looks, tones, gestures, eager eloquence,

  To a bold brook that splits for better speed,

  And at the self-same moment, works its way

  Through many channels, ever and anon 580

  Parted and re-united: his compeer

  To the still lake, whose stillness is to sight

  As beautiful—as grateful to the mind.

  —But to what object shall the lovely Girl

  Be likened? She whose countenance and air

  Unite the graceful qualities of both,

  Even as she shares the pride and joy of both.

  My grey-haired Friend was moved; his vivid eye

  Glistened with tenderness; his mind, I knew,

  Was full; and had, I doubted not, returned, 590

  Upon this impulse, to the theme—erewhile

  Abruptly broken off. The ruddy boys

  Withdrew, on summons to their well-earned meal;

  And He—to whom all tongues resigned their rights

  With willingne
ss, to whom the general ear

  Listened with readier patience than to strain

  Of music, lute or harp, a long delight

  That ceased not when his voice had ceased—as One

  Who from truth’s central point serenely views

  The compass of his argument—began 600

  Mildly, and with a clear and steady tone.

  THE EXCURSION: BOOK NINTH

  DISCOURSE OF THE WANDERER, AND AN EVENING VISIT TO THE LAKE

  “TO every Form of being is assigned,”

  Thus calmly spake the venerable Sage,

  “An ‘active’ Principle:—howe’er removed

  From sense and observation, it subsists

  In all things, in all natures; in the stars

  Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,

  In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone

  That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,

  The moving waters, and the invisible air.

  Whate’er exists hath properties that spread 10

  Beyond itself, communicating good

  A simple blessing, or with evil mixed;

  Spirit that knows no insulated spot,

  No chasm, no solitude; from link to link

  It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds.

  This is the freedom of the universe;

  Unfolded still the more, more visible,

  The more we know; and yet is reverenced least,

  And least respected in the human Mind,

  Its most apparent home. The food of hope 20

  Is meditated action; robbed of this

  Her sole support, she languishes and dies.

  We perish also; for we live by hope

  And by desire; we see by the glad light

  And breathe the sweet air of futurity;

  And so we live, or else we have no life.

  To-morrow—nay perchance this very hour

  (For every moment hath its own to-morrow!)

  Those blooming Boys, whose hearts are almost sick

  With present triumph, will be sure to find 30

  A field before them freshened with the dew

  Of other expectations;—in which course

  Their happy year spins round. The youth obeys

  A like glad impulse; and so moves the man

  ‘Mid all his apprehensions, cares, and fears,—

  Or so he ought to move. Ah! why in age

  Do we revert so fondly to the walks

  Of childhood—but that there the Soul discerns

  The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired

  Of her own native vigour; thence can hear 40

  Reverberations; and a choral song,

  Commingling with the incense that ascends,

  Undaunted, toward the imperishable heavens,

  From her own lonely altar?

  Do not think

  That good and wise ever will be allowed,

  Though strength decay, to breathe in such estate

  As shall divide them wholly from the stir

  Of hopeful nature. Rightly is it said

  That Man descends into the VALE of years;

  Yet have I thought that we might also speak, 50

  And not presumptuously, I trust, of Age,

  As of a final EMINENCE; though bare

  In aspect and forbidding, yet a point

  On which ‘tis not impossible to sit

  In awful sovereignty; a place of power,

  A throne, that may be likened unto his,

  Who, in some placid day of summer, looks

  Down from a mountain-top,—say one of those

  High peaks, that bound the vale where now we are.

  Faint, and diminished to the gazing eye, 60

  Forest and field, and hill and dale appear,

  With all the shapes over their surface spread:

  But, while the gross and visible frame of things

  Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,

  Yea almost on the Mind herself, and seems

  All unsubstantialized,—how loud the voice

  Of waters, with invigorated peal

  From the full river in the vale below,

  Ascending! For on that superior height

  Who sits, is disencumbered from the press 70

  Of near obstructions, and is privileged

  To breathe in solitude, above the host

  Of ever-humming insects, ‘mid thin air

  That suits not them. The murmur of the leaves

  Many and idle, visits not his ear:

  This he is freed from, and from thousand notes

  (Not less unceasing, not less vain than these,)

  By which the finer passages of sense

  Are occupied; and the Soul, that would incline

  To listen, is prevented or deterred. 80

  And may it not be hoped, that, placed by age

  In like removal, tranquil though severe,

  We are not so removed for utter loss;

  But for some favour, suited to our need?

  What more than that the severing should confer

  Fresh power to commune with the invisible world,

  And hear the mighty stream of tendency

  Uttering, for elevation of our thought,

  A clear sonorous voice, inaudible

  To the vast multitude; whose doom it is 90

  To run the giddy round of vain delight,

  Or fret and labour on the Plain below.

  But, if to such sublime ascent the hopes

  Of Man may rise, as to a welcome close

  And termination of his mortal course;

  Them only can such hope inspire whose minds

  Have not been starved by absolute neglect;

  Nor bodies crushed by unremitting toil;

  To whom kind Nature, therefore, may afford

  Proof of the sacred love she bears for all; 100

  Whose birthright Reason, therefore, may ensure.

  For me, consulting what I feel within

  In times when most existence with herself

  Is satisfied, I cannot but believe,

  That, far as kindly Nature hath free scope

  And Reason’s sway predominates; even so far,

  Country, society, and time itself,

  That saps the individual’s bodily frame,

  And lays the generations low in dust,

  Do, by the almighty Ruler’s grace, partake 110

  Of one maternal spirit, bringing forth

  And cherishing with ever-constant love,

  That tires not, nor betrays. Our life is turned

  Out of her course, wherever man is made

  An offering, or a sacrifice, a tool

  Or implement, a passive thing employed

  As a brute mean, without acknowledgment

  Of common right or interest in the end;

  Used or abused, as selfishness may prompt.

  Say, what can follow for a rational soul 120

  Perverted thus, but weakness in all good,

  And strength in evil? Hence an after-call

  For chastisement, and custody, and bonds,

  And oft-times Death, avenger of the past,

  And the sole guardian in whose hands we dare

  Entrust the future.—Not for these sad issues

  Was Man created; but to obey the law

  Of life, and hope, and action. And ‘tis known

  That when we stand upon our native soil,

  Unelbowed by such objects as oppress 130

  Our active powers, those powers themselves become

  Strong to subvert our noxious qualities:

  They sweep distemper from the busy day,

  And make the chalice of the big round year

  Run o’er with gladness; whence the Being moves

  In beauty through the world; and all who see

  Bless him, rejoicing in his neighbourhood.”

  “Then,” said the Solitary, “by what force

  Of lan
guage shall a feeling heart express

  Her sorrow for that multitude in whom 140

  We look for health from seeds that have been sown

  In sickness, and for increase in a power

  That works but by extinction? On themselves

  They cannot lean, nor turn to their own hearts

  To know what they must do; their wisdom is

  To look into the eyes of others, thence

  To be instructed what they must avoid:

  Or rather, let us say, how least observed,

  How with most quiet and most silent death,

  With the least taint and injury to the air 150

  The oppressor breathes, their human form divine,

  And their immortal soul, may waste away.”

  The Sage rejoined, “I thank you—you have spared

  My voice the utterance of a keen regret,

  A wide compassion which with you I share.

  When, heretofore, I placed before your sight

  A Little-one, subjected to the arts

  Of modern ingenuity, and made

  The senseless member of a vast machine,

  Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel; 160

  Think not, that, pitying him, I could forget

  The rustic Boy, who walks the fields, untaught;

  The slave of ignorance, and oft of want,

  And miserable hunger. Much, too much,

  Of this unhappy lot, in early youth

  We both have witnessed, lot which I myself

  Shared, though in mild and merciful degree:

  Yet was the mind to hindrances exposed,

  Through which I struggled, not without distress

  And sometimes injury, like a lamb enthralled 170

  ‘Mid thorns and brambles; or a bird that breaks

  Through a strong net, and mounts upon the wind,

  Though with her plumes impaired. If they, whose souls

  Should open while they range the richer fields

  Of merry England, are obstructed less

  By indigence, their ignorance is not less,

  Nor less to be deplored. For who can doubt

  That tens of thousands at this day exist

  Such as the boy you painted, lineal heirs

  Of those who once were vassals of her soil, 180

  Following its fortunes like the beasts or trees

  Which it sustained. But no one takes delight

  In this oppression; none are proud of it;

  It bears no sounding name, nor ever bore;

  A standing grievance, an indigenous vice

  Of every country under heaven. My thoughts

  Were turned to evils that are new and chosen,

  A bondage lurking under shape of good,—

  Arts, in themselves beneficent and kind,

  But all too fondly followed and too far;— 190

  To victims, which the merciful can see

  Nor think that they are victims—turned to wrongs,