Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  We did not look along the white line of the road to Solway Moss without some melancholy emotion, though we had the fair prospect of the Cumberland mountains full in view, with the certainty, barring accidents, of reaching our own dear home the next day. Breakfasted at the Graham’s Arms. The weather had been very fine from the time of our arrival at Jedburgh, and this was a very pleasant day. The sun ‘shone fair on Carlisle walls’ when we first saw them from the top of the opposite hill. Stopped to look at the place on the sand near the bridge where Hatfield had been executed. Put up at the same inn as before, and were recognised by the woman who had waited on us. Everybody spoke of Hatfield as an injured man. After dinner went to a village six miles further, where we slept.

  Sunday, September 25th, 1803. — A beautiful autumnal day. Breakfasted at a public-house by the road-side; dined at Threlkeld; arrived at home between eight and nine o’clock, where we found Mary in perfect health, Joanna Hutchinson with her, and little John asleep in the clothes-basket by the fire.

  SONNET

  COMPOSED BETWEEN DALSTON AND GRASMERE,

  SEPTEMBER 25th, 1803.

  Fly, some kind spirit, fly to Grasmere Vale!

  Say that we come, and come by this day’s light

  Glad tidings! — spread them over field and height,

  But, chiefly, let one Cottage hear the tale!

  There let a mystery of joy prevail,

  The kitten frolic with unruly might,

  And Rover whine as at a second sight

  Of near-approaching good, that will not fail:

  And from that Infant’s face let joy appear;

  Yea, let our Mary’s one companion child,

  That hath her six weeks’ solitude beguiled

  With intimations manifold and dear,

  While we have wander’d over wood and wild —

  Smile on its Mother now with bolder cheer!

  APPENDIX A.

  ‘And think and fear.’ — Page 11.

  The entire Poem as given in the works of the Poet stands thus: —

  TO THE SONS OF BURNS,

  after visiting the grave of their father.

  ‘The Poet’s grave is in a corner of the churchyard. We looked at it with melancholy and painful reflections, repeating to each other his own verses —

  “Is there a man whose judgment clear,” etc.’

  Extract from the Journal of my Fellow-Traveller.

  ‘Mid crowded obelisks and urns

  I sought the untimely grave of Burns;

  Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns

  With sorrow true;

  And more would grieve, but that it turns

  Trembling to you!

  Through twilight shades of good and ill

  Ye now are panting up life’s hill,

  And more than common strength and skill

  Must ye display;

  If ye would give the better will

  Its lawful sway.

  Hath Nature strung your nerves to bear

  Intemperance with less harm, beware!

  But if the Poet’s wit ye share,

  Like him can speed

  The social hour — of tenfold care

  There will be need;

  For honest men delight will take

  To spare your failings for his sake,

  Will flatter you, — and fool and rake

  Your steps pursue;

  And of your Father’s name will make

  A snare for you.

  Far from their noisy haunts retire,

  And add your voices to the quire

  That sanctify the cottage fire

  With service meet;

  There seek the genius of your Sire,

  His spirit greet;

  Or where, ‘mid ‘lonely heights and hows,’

  He paid to Nature tuneful vows;

  Or wiped his honourable brows

  Bedewed with toil,

  While reapers strove, or busy ploughs

  Upturned the soil;

  His judgment with benignant ray

  Shall guide, his fancy cheer, your way;

  But ne’er to a seductive lay

  Let faith be given;

  Nor deem that ‘light which leads astray,

  Is light from Heaven.’

  Let no mean hope your souls enslave;

  Be independent, generous, brave;

  Your Father such example gave,

  And such revere;

  But be admonished by his grave,

  And think, and fear!

  Two other Poems on the same subject may fitly be inserted in this place, though, as appears from the Poet’s notes, one of them at least belongs to a later date.

  AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS. 1803

  Seven years after his death.

  I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold,

  At thoughts of what I now behold:

  As vapours breathed from dungeons cold

  Strike pleasure dead,

  So sadness comes from out the mould

  Where Burns is laid.

  And have I then thy bones so near,

  And thou forbidden to appear?

  As if it were thyself that’s here,

  I shrink with pain;

  And both my wishes and my fear

  Alike are vain.

  Off weight — nor press on weight! — away

  Dark thoughts! — they came, but not to stay;

  With chastened feelings would I pay

  The tribute due

  To him, and aught that hides his clay

  From mortal view.

  Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth

  He sang, his genius ‘glinted’ forth,

  Rose like a star that touching earth,

  For so it seems,

  Doth glorify its humble birth

  With matchless beams.

  The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow,

  The struggling heart, where be they now? —

  Full soon the Aspirant of the plough,

  The prompt, the brave,

  Slept, with the obscurest, in the low

  And silent grave.

  I mourned with thousands, but as one

  More deeply grieved, for He was gone

  Whose light I hailed when first it shone,

  And showed my youth

  How Verse may build a princely throne

  On humble truth.

  Alas! where’er the current tends,

  Regret pursues and with it blends, —

  Huge Criffel’s hoary top ascends

  By Skiddaw seen,

  Neighbours we were, and loving friends

  We might have been;

  True friends though diversely inclined;

  But heart with heart and mind with mind,

  Where the main fibres are entwined,

  Through Nature’s skill,

  May even by contraries be joined

  More closely still.

  The tear will start, and let it flow;

  Thou ‘poor Inhabitant below,’

  At this dread moment — even so —

  Might we together

  Have sate and talked where gowans blow,

  Or on wild heather.

  What treasures would have then been placed

  Within my reach; of knowledge graced

  By fancy what a rich repast!

  But why go on? —

  Oh! spare to sweep, thou mournful blast,

  His grave grass-grown.

  There, too, a Son, his joy and pride,

  (Not three weeks past the Stripling died,)

  Lies gathered to his Father’s side,

  Soul-moving sight!

  Yet one to which is not denied

  Some sad delight.

  For he is safe, a quiet bed

  Hath early found among the dead,

  Harboured where none can be misled,

  Wronged, or distrest;

  And surely here it may be said

  That such are blest.
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  And oh for Thee, by pitying grace

  Checked oft-times in a devious race.

  May He who halloweth the place

  Where Man is laid,

  Receive thy Spirit in the embrace

  For which it prayed!

  Sighing I turned away; but ere

  Night fell I heard, or seemed to hear,

  Music that sorrow comes not near,

  A ritual hymn,

  Chanted in love that casts out fear

  By Seraphim.

  From the notes appended to the latest editions of Wordsworth’s works, it appears that the preceding poem, ‘though felt at the time, was not composed till many years afterwards.’

  THOUGHTS SUGGESTED THE DAY FOLLOWING, ON THE BANKS OF NITH, NEAR THE POET’S RESIDENCE.

  Too frail to keep the lofty vow

  That must have followed when his brow

  Was wreathed — ’The Vision’ tells us how —

  With holly spray,

  He faultered, drifted to and fro,

  And passed away.

  Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng

  Our minds when, lingering all too long,

  Over the grave of Burns we hung

  In social grief —

  Indulged as if it were a wrong

  To seek relief.

  But, leaving each unquiet theme

  Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,

  And prompt to welcome every gleam

  Of good and fair,

  Let us beside this limpid Stream

  Breathe hopeful air.

  Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;

  Think rather of those moments bright

  When to the consciousness of right

  His course was true,

  When Wisdom prospered in his sight,

  And Virtue grew.

  Yes, freely let our hearts expand,

  Freely as in youth’s season bland,

  When side by side, his Book in hand,

  We wont to stray,

  Our pleasure varying at command

  Of each sweet Lay.

  How oft inspired must he have trod

  These pathways, yon far-stretching road!

  There lurks his home; in that Abode,

  With mirth elate,

  Or in his nobly-pensive mood,

  The Rustic sate.

  Proud thoughts that Image overawes,

  Before it humbly let us pause,

  And ask of Nature, from what cause,

  And by what rules

  She trained her Burns to win applause

  That shames the Schools.

  Through busiest street and loneliest glen

  Are felt the flashes of his pen;

  He rules ‘mid winter snows, and when

  Bees fill their hives;

  Deep in the general heart of men

  His power survives.

  What need of fields in some far clime

  Where Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime,

  And all that fetched the flowing rhyme

  From genuine springs,

  Shall dwell together till old Time

  Folds up his wings?

  Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven

  This Minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;

  The rueful conflict, the heart riven

  With vain endeavour,

  And memory of Earth’s bitter leaven,

  Effaced for ever.

  But why to Him confine the prayer,

  When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear

  On the frail heart the purest share

  With all that live? —

  The best of what we do and are,

  Just God, forgive!

  APPENDIX B.

  ‘The Waterfall, Cora Linn.’ — Page 36.

  The following poem belongs to the series entitled Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1814. It is in a later, not better, manner than those of 1803. Prefixed to it in the later editions of the Poet’s works are these words: ‘I had seen this celebrated waterfall twice before. But the feelings to which it had given birth were not expressed till they recurred in presence of the object on this occasion.’

  COMPOSED AT CORA LINN,

  in sight of wallace’s tower.

  ‘ — How Wallace fought for Scotland, left the name

  Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower,

  All over his dear Country; left the deeds

  Of Wallace, like a family of ghosts,

  To people the steep rocks and river banks,

  Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul

  Of independence and stern liberty.’ — MS.

  Lord of the vale! astounding Flood;

  The dullest leaf in this thick wood

  Quakes — conscious of thy power;

  The caves reply with hollow moan;

  And vibrates to its central stone,

  Yon time-cemented Tower!

  And yet how fair the rural scene!

  For thou, O Clyde, hast ever been

  Beneficent as strong;

  Pleased in refreshing dews to steep

  The little trembling flowers that peep

  Thy shelving rocks among.

  Hence all who love their country, love

  To look on thee — delight to rove

  Where they thy voice can hear;

  And, to the patriot-warrior’s Shade,

  Lord of the vale! to Heroes laid

  In dust, that voice is dear!

  Along thy banks, at dead of night,

  Sweeps visibly the Wallace Wight;

  Or stands, in warlike vest,

  Aloft, beneath the moon’s pale beam,

  A Champion worthy of the stream,

  Yon grey tower’s living crest!

  But clouds and envious darkness hide

  A Form not doubtfully descried: —

  Their transient mission o’er,

  O say to what blind region flee

  These Shapes of awful phantasy?

  To what untrodden shore?

  Less than divine command they spurn;

  But this we from the mountains learn,

  And this the valleys show;

  That never will they deign to hold

  Communion where the heart is cold

  To human weal and woe.

  The man of abject soul in vain

  Shall walk the Marathonian plain;

  Or thrill the shadowy gloom,

  That still invests the guardian Pass,

  Where stood, sublime, Leonidas

  Devoted to the tomb.

  Nor deem that it can aught avail

  For such to glide with oar or sail

  Beneath the piny wood,

  Where Tell once drew, by Uri’s lake,

  His vengeful shafts — prepared to slake

  Their thirst in Tyrants’ blood.

  APPENDIX C.

  ‘Poured out these verses.’ — Page 139.

  ADDRESS TO KILCHURN CASTLE.

  Child of loud-throated War! the mountain Stream

  Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest

  Is come, and thou art silent in thy age;

  Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are caught

  Ambiguous, neither wholly thine nor theirs.

  Oh! there is life that breathes not; Powers there are

  That touch each other to the quick in modes

  Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive,

  No soul to dream of. What art Thou, from care

  Cast off — abandoned by thy rugged Sire,

  Nor by soft Peace adopted; though, in place

  And in dimension, such that thou might’st seem

  But a mere footstool to yon sovereign Lord,

  Huge Cruachan, (a thing that meaner hills

  Might crush, nor know that it had suffered harm;)

  Yet he, not loth, in favour of thy claims

  To reverence, suspends his own; submitting

  All that the God of Nature ha
th conferred,

  All that he holds in common with the stars,

  To the memorial majesty of Time

  Impersonated in thy calm decay!

  Take, then, thy seat, Vicegerent unreproved!

  Now, while a farewell gleam of evening light

  Is fondly lingering on thy shattered front,

  Do thou, in turn, be paramount; and rule

  Over the pomp and beauty of a scene

  Whose mountains, torrents, lake, and woods, unite

  To pay thee homage; and with these are joined,

  In willing admiration and respect,

  Two Hearts, which in thy presence might be called

  Youthful as Spring. — Shade of departed Power,

  Skeleton of unfleshed humanity,

  The chronicle were welcome that should call

  Into the compass of distinct regard

  The toils and struggles of thy infant years!

  Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;

  Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,

  Frozen by distance; so, majestic Pile,

  To the perception of this Age, appear

  Thy fierce beginnings, softened and subdued

  And quieted in character — the strife,

  The pride, the fury uncontrollable,

  Lost on the aërial heights of the Crusades!

  ‘The first three lines were thrown off at the moment I first caught sight of the ruin from a small eminence by the wayside; the rest was added many years after.’ — Wordsworth’s Life.

  APPENDIX D.

  ‘Loch Leven.’ — Page 165.

  THE BLIND HIGHLAND BOY.

  a tale told by the fireside, after returning to the vale

  of grasmere.

  ‘The story was told me by George Mackreth, for many years parish-clerk of Grasmere. He had been an eye-witness of the occurrence. The vessel in reality was a washing-tub, which the little fellow had met with on the shore of the loch.’

  Now we are tired of boisterous joy,

  Have romped enough, my little Boy!

  Jane hangs her head upon my breast,

  And you shall bring your stool and rest

  This corner is your own.

  There! take your seat, and let me see

  That you can listen quietly:

  And, as I promised, I will tell

  That strange adventure which befel

  A poor blind Highland Boy.

  A Highland Boy! — why call him so?

  Because, my Darlings, ye must know

  That, under hills which rise like towers,

  Far higher hills than these of ours!

  He from his birth had lived.

  He ne’er had seen one earthly sight,

  The sun, the day; the stars, the night;

  Or tree, or butterfly, or flower,

  Or fish in stream, or bird in bower,

  Or woman, man, or child.

  And yet he neither drooped nor pined,

  Nor had a melancholy mind;

  For God took pity on the Boy,